Police this week are warning the public about a continuing drive by criminals seeking to defraud residents through telephone calls, in which the callers fraudulently seek to obtain retail "gift cards" from the person called.

The criminals were not successful in any of their recent reported attempts to defraud residents of money, police said. But because such criminals are persistent, police are issuing the warning to the public.

The callers are persuasive and sound authoritative when making their illicit scamming telephone calls in pressuring residents to provide them with money.

Recent scams include offenders falsely claiming that they are Internal Revenue Service (IRS) staffers who claim that the person called owes the IRS money. The caller then instructs the person called to pay off the nonexistent debt by obtaining a retail gift card for a specific dollar amount. After the victim obtains that gift card, they are requested to scratch off the redemption codes on the back of the card and provide the offender with those numerical codes, police said.

Through such a scam, the offender is able to have full use of the gift card without actually possessing the physical card, police said.

The gift card that is often sought by the criminals is issued by Target, a major retail company, police said.

The public should strictly avoid paying for any services or items through gift cards because such payment arrangements constitute scams, police said.

Legitimate organizations, businesses, and individuals do not request payments through the use of gift cards, police stress.

Also, police are warning residents to avoid taking part in any selling/buying transactions in which the resident does not make personal contact with the other party in the transaction.

Scams are being conducted on internet websites, such as Craigslist, in which the other party has a particular criminal reason to resort to using only e-mail as a means of communication, rather than making contact through a voice telephone call or in person, police said.