By LUCY ANSELL

The Australian Tax Office is warning people about a phone scam targeting consumers after reports of fraud and abusive phone calls recently skyrocketed.

Unlucky scam targets receive a phone call claiming to be from the ATO declaring that they have serious tax debt that must be immediately paid off or they will face an arrest warrant.

Bayside homeowner Gary Ansell was one of many targets of the scam.

 “They commanded me to stay on the phone until I transferred $16,000 and got really angry whenever I questioned their demands or asked about my rights,” Mr Ansell said.

“The unfortunate thing is, people will give in to these aggressive demands, ” said the father of two. “I’m lucky I realised just in time.”

A representative of the ATO said there had been a recent spike in reports.

“For the past couple of weeks we’ve been getting lots of calls dealing with this matter,” he said.

“They try as many targets as they can, as quick as they can and then they go quiet and lay low again … it’s an unfortunate reality but it is happening,” the ATO employee said.

"We would never make phone calls out of the blue, making demands and scaring people like that, it’s not what we’re about”.

Detective Senior-Constable Scott Stinchcomb from Bayside CIU said the fraudsters were targeting senior citizens.

“(Scammers) are hoping the majority of them have dementia issues so they can easily coerce them into handing over the money,” Sen-Det Stinchcomb said. “One of the victims I dealt with handed over $12,000.”

"The problem that we’re having is these defenders are overseas, they’re not in Australia, so they’re able to route calls through calls centers and the like and cover their tracks really well and then the money is transferred out of Australia. So it makes it very hard for us because it’s working out of our jurisdiction,” Sen-Det Stinchcomb said.

The ATO released an online warning message last month, however most people are still unaware and targets are still being hit.

Sen-Det Stinchcomb believed the best course of action the ATO should take in response to this scam was education.

“We need to educate these people, because people don’t know any different, they don’t have very regular dealings with the ATO.”

“Generally your only dealings with your ATO is when you do your tax return every year, they don’t know the processes and for some people they would think it’s the norm to be contacted on the phone by the ATO.”

The ATO are investigating individual reports but if people have reason to believe that they are being scammed or receive any suspicious calls like these, the Federal Government’s ScamWatch website advises people to ask for the caller’s name, end the call and then phone them back on ATO’s official contact number, 13 28 69.

ScamWatch warns people to be extra careful as scammers may even recite some personal information to trick people into thinking they are genuine. It is easy for scammers to get hold of personal information from social media and other networking forums.