A Powell woman fell victim to phone scammers last week, being conned into giving them $3,000 in iTunes gift cards; the men had claimed the gift cards were the only way to pay off a debt to the Internal Revenue Service and avoid arrest.

Locals have been among those targeted in ongoing variations of phone scams that the IRS says have bilked thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars over the past few years. The scams typically involve getting a call from someone who claims you’ll be arrested if you don’t immediately pay a supposed IRS debt.

“They’re very threatening and they keep you on the phone and they eventually wear you down,” Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt explained.

There are clear ways to tell if a call is a scam: The IRS will never demand payment by an iTunes gift card (or any other prepaid card), will never ask for a credit card number over the phone and will never threaten to have you arrested for not paying.

“Confirm everything before you act,” Eckerdt advised. “No legitimate source is going to refuse to let you get off the phone and let you confirm what’s going on.”

He said the Powell woman scammed out of $3,000 likely will not get any of it back, adding, “You feel for her.”

The crooks used a technique called spoofing to make it appear as though their call was coming from the Powell Police Department’s phone number — 307-754-2212.

“Our number doesn’t show up as 2212 when we call people ... but they were doing their research,” Eckerdt said of the scammers.

The woman said the callers gave common American names, like Jonathon, but had foreign accents.

They insisted the woman owed roughly $5,000 in belated taxes. The bogus IRS representatives claimed she had failed to respond to mailings and was about to be arrested. However, the callers offered one last chance: she could avoid going to jail by immediately making a $500 payment.

The woman gathered $500 in cash and — following the men’s instructions — purchased a $500 iTunes gift card. She then read the card’s number over the phone, allowing the men to redeem the money she’d put on the card.

But the fake IRS representatives delivered some more bad news. The woman would actually need to pay another $2,500 to avoid arrest.

Eckerdt said that’s a typical pattern.

“As soon as they get the $500, then they come back for more,” he said.

The woman used a credit card to purchase a $2,500 iTunes card and again gave the number to the men.

The Federal Trade Commission has said iTunes cards appeal to criminals because the payments are hard to reverse and iTunes credits are hard to track.

“They sell the cards on thriving gift card black markets, where iTunes cards — all cards, really — can sell for pennies on the dollar. Still, that gives criminals a great way to receive funds from victims and quickly cash out,” journalist Bob Sullivan explains on his website, bobsullivan.net.

After the Powell woman paid the additional $2,500, the scammers demanded more. They also insisted the woman stay on the line — threatening to report her to the authorities and note her non-compliance if she hung up.

The woman stayed on the phone, but drove to the Park County Clerk of District Court’s Office in Cody to ask in person if there were any active warrants for her arrest. The clerks told the woman she was being scammed and to contact police.

The woman told the clerks she hadn’t been sure what was going on.

“They scare you to death and you can’t think,” she explained.

Powell police have no leads, as the scammers never gave an address or working phone number and likely called from a foreign country.

“There’s nothing for us to follow up on,” Eckerdt said.

Police have warned people about such scams via newspapers, radio stations and Facebook.

“I just don’t know how else to get the word out,” Eckerdt said.