COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- It's a new twist on an old scam, but this time a scammer actually called 911 on the victim.
KKTV reports police swarmed the victim's home Tuesday in Colorado Springs after getting several 911 calls.
The station reports one caller, claiming to be the homeowner Jim Davis, was threatening to kill people. In another call, someone pretending to be Davis said armed men were outside the home demanding money.
Davis wasn't home at the time, but his 20-year-old daughter Amber was.
“The house phone was ringing like 50 times, so I really didn’t know what was going on, and so I finally answered thinking that it was my dad trying to get a hold of me, and this guy answered in a really weird accent and he said that my dad was under arrest,” she told the station.
Just after that, police showed up at the home.
Davis rushed home because he wasn't sure whether he was talking to the cops or the scammers.
“I didn’t know who was calling me because I had all these fake phone calls happening from six different numbers … so when the police officer contacted me on my cell phone … it said it was from an unavailable number so I thought it was a scam again,” he told KKTV. “Naturally I was scared for my family’s life … I was also scared; they said that if I didn’t pay I was going to go to prison and I was going to have to pay $96,000.”
Amber went outside and Jim arrived home. Police soon discovered that the calls were false.
Now, officers are investigating where the calls came from, and federal agents are getting involved.
Davis says he's been getting calls from scammers posing as IRS agents demanding money. Recognizing this as a scam, he ignored them. When the scammers became frustrated, they started making the fake calls to 911.
Authorities are reminding everyone the IRS will never call or threaten someone over the phone. Information is always sent via U.S. mail.
Listen to the 911 call via KKTV >>