According to ABC News in Denver, Colorado, E-mails and letters that appear to be from government agencies are among the latest round of scams by criminals hoping to obtain money or personal information from victims.

“It was very convincing. It had an official IRS letterhead,” said Craig Schroetlin, pastor of Daystar Church in Aurora.

The e-mail Schroetlin received looked official because it was copied almost verbatim from the Internal Revenue Service Web site.

“It had to do with the tax incentive checks President Bush had signed,” he said.

Schroetlin had already received his tax incentive, but said the e-mail was so convincing it made him think twice.

“It was extremely official looking,” he said.

Had Schroetlin clicked on the alleged IRS link contained in the e-mail, it would have led him to forms the scammers use to collect personal information from their victims.

“It’s people preying on the needy, on the uninformed,” he said.

Wanda Potthoff was almost scammed at work.

“It looked like a secretary of state document, that it had come from them,” she said, “My first reaction was, ‘Why do I have to pay $150?’ ”

A company calling itself Colorado Corporate Compliance tells small business owners they need to file a report and pay a fee or face consequences from the Secretary Of State’s office.

“I think if I hadn’t already filed the corporate report that year I might have gone ahead and done it,” Potthoff said.

Call7 tracked the address provided for the phony company and found it lead to a UPS store in Denver, where the would-be scammers kept a post office box.

“It makes me angry that people are trying to take advantage of people just to line their own pockets,” Potthoff said.

Fraud expert Mason Finks said scammers blend real elements into their phony documents to further confuse consumers and turn them into victims.

“The only difference is this half line of text,” said Finks comparing a phony IRS e-mail to a legitimate one.

“Each of those was linked to a real portion of the IRS Web site,” he said.

Finks has recently seen phony e-mails from the FBI and other government agencies.

“Seldom if ever will a government agency send you an e-mail saying you need provide information or you’ve won something. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s done through the mail,” Finks said.

He also pointed out another twist- scammers spoofing caller I.D.

Finks said in a recent scam the callers paid for a third-party service to change their caller I.D. to read “Douglas County Government.”

He said the caller told the potential victim a jury summons had been returned and that they needed the person to verify all their contact information.

Finks said consumers should always be suspicious and verify every request with the agency themselves or with a local law enforcement agency before taking any action.

The bottom line is this:  The IRS will never ask for payment via an e-mail - PERIOD!

For more information on fraud prevention or to report a scam contact the irs or logon to www.irs.gov