Back in the days when the coronavirus pandemic was at its peak, there was a widely shared post on various social media platforms that claimed that the IRS had established a hotline for people to check their stimulus check status. It was posted on the 1st of April, 2020- and as it turned out it was a joke.
The hotline was supposed to be 1-800-746-6373. And when one actually called that number up, a woman’s voice replied that this was the number for oral stimulation. After that, the voice asked for their credit card information. The stimulus payments were a large part of the government response to the coronavirus outbreak, with the federal government sending checks to those that were in immediate need of it.
Stimulus Check Scam Had Been A Part Since the Beginning
The first round of the stimulus check packages issued a sum of $1,200 each to millions of citizens throughout the country, with several additional payments of around $500 per child. The stimulus check payments were then supposed to be phased out for those with annual earnings of more than $75,000 a year. Those earning more than $99,000 would not be considered eligible for the payment. According to the official website of the IRS, individuals didn’t have to apply in order to receive an online payment.
The IRS had stated that a large section of the population definitely didn’t need to take any form of action. In fact, it would be the IRS that would be calculating and automatically issuing the economic impact payments to those that were deemed eligible. For those individuals that had already pushed for their tax returns for 2019, the IRS would also use this information to start calculating the payment amount. And for those who hadn’t filed their return for 2019, the IRS would be using the information from their tax filing of 2018 to calculate the payment amount.
