A Colorado woman was able to melt a scam artist's heart after she broke down in tears and told him she was pregnant, 9NEWS reported.
Business owner Sarah Carr said she received a chilling voicemail on Tuesday from a man claiming to be an IRS representative.
"I called it back. The voicemail was saying there was a lien on my property," said Carr, whose family owns an event space in Denver's Broomfield suburb. "I was being convicted of tax fraud."
The horrified mom-to-be listened as the stranger relayed private details of her life, including her address. That was the breaking point.
"I just started crying," Carr told 9NEWS. "I said, 'I'm nine months pregnant. I'm supposed to have a baby in three weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do.' "
Carr's tearful confession must have resonated with the man on the other end of the line because he stopped the hoax.
"And then he says, 'wait, wait, wait, wait, you're pregnant?' And I said, 'yes!' And he goes 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this is a scam,' " she told the station.
" 'We're scamming you,' " the man continued, according to Carr. " 'We were just trying to get money out of you. Please stop crying.' "
The IRS said it would never call a person and threaten incarceration for not paying taxes, 9NEWS reported.
Carr, who owns a total of three businesses, was relieved she was out of the woods. But what alarmed her most about the incident is not the con artist's change of heart, it's the fact he knew so much about her.
"You hear about scams all the time, and you think that you're smart enough and you would recognize," Carr told 9NEWS. "It was all just so real."
Phone scams like this and others are not uncommon. Last year, the U.S. Senate heard testimony from elderly adults who fell prey to the "grandparent scam," where perpetrators call pretending to be loved ones in jail or in danger and in need of money.
