An old phone scam is making the rounds again; emptying bank accounts with a new twist.

An old phone scam is making the rounds again; emptying bank accounts with a new twist. Scammers are lighting up the phone lines again in central Ohio -- pretending to be from the IRS.

Before you say to yourself, “I’ll never fall for that,” Reynoldsburg police want you to know that scammers today are getting clever about taking your hard earned cash.

Officer Nikki Riley with the Reynoldsburg Division of Police says scammers are now spoofing phone numbers so they look more legitimate.

“The caller ID said 9-1-1,” describes Riley of a recent police report taken involving a phony IRS scam. “I read somewhere that it says IRS - so it's not just a strange phone number, they're pretty creative in their ways.”

The latest scam making a new comeback involves people posing as IRS agents, saying you owe money such as back taxes, fines, or fees. According to the Ohio Attorney General’s office, complaints about the IRS scam are going back up.

CrimeTracker 10 uncovered new statistics dating back to March 2016 of potential “IRS Scam” reports to the Attorney General’s Help Center. Calls in Franklin County spiked in May - which is typical, since that's about a month after Tax Day. Complaints went down in June and July, but started rising again in August.

March: 1,145

April: 1,143

May: 2,324

June: 1,901

July: 1,387

August: 1,489

September is on the same track, with more fake calls circulating throughout central Ohio.

“A lot of my personal friends have received calls in the past week, so I think there’s an increase in it right now,” says Officer Riley.

Riley also wants people to know that anyone can fall for the IRS scam – not just the elderly or uneducated. Last week, a 24-year-old man told Reynoldsburg police detectives that he got a call from a man claiming to be the IRS. The scammer gave the victim a badge number and case number security code to sound more authentic. The man was told he owed thousands of dollars in tax filings and forced the man to drive to several stores with cash in hand and buy gift cards.

By the end of the call, he had lost $11,000 in gift cards from iTunes, Target and Best Buy.

“That's instant cash to them,” says Riley. “As soon as they get those pin numbers, they don't have to have the physical gift cards in hand.”

In May, the Ohio Attorney General’s office put out a warning about the iTunes gift card twist, saying 10 central Ohioans fell victim to the IRS scam. That number is now over 40, with one woman losing close to $20,000 involving gift cards and Money Gram.

Officer Riley says the scammers will use threatening words to force people into paying up.

“In one of these cases, [scammers] said ‘we have your address, we're coming to take you to jail,’” Riley adds.

Riley wants to remind people that the IRS will never ask you for money over the phone, nor will they ask for your credit card or debit card number. If you have an issue with your taxes, the IRS will send a letter to you in the mail first.

If you do get a call and the person sounds legitimate, police say ask the caller for their name, badge number, and the case number. Then call back the IRS and see if there’s an actual case opened with your information.