It’s a warning you’ll want to hear before you file your taxes.  This year, someone is preying on customers of one of the country’s largest tax preparers.  So far, the con artists are having great success in Middle Tennessee.

Calls started coming into NewsChannel 5 on Friday morning, from residents who say they’re out thousands of dollars.

“I have no idea how they got my account information at all,” said Shay Edmonds of Madison, who is among the victims.

Edmonds said she’s gotten her taxes done at H&R Block for eight years, and has never had any problems.

This year, she opted to get her return issued on an H&R Block Emerald Pre-paid Card.  Just a few hours after receiving it, though, she got a text message that didn’t quite make sense.

The text asked her to verify her account information.  Edmonds said she never responded, but believes by that point, the damage was done.

“When I woke up this morning, almost $3,000 was gone from the card,” she said.  “I had planned on paying bills. I have children that I’m supporting on my own.”

When Edmonds called H&R Block to report the missing money, she learned she wasn’t alone.

“They said they call center was blowing up, that’s what one woman told me,” she said.

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After reviewing the 2010 federal tax return Gingrich released last week, the tax experts said he may have left himself open to an IRS challenge.

“That could be the type of return that would be flagged for an audit,” said one of the experts, Robert McKenzie, a tax attorney at the Arnstein & Lehr law firm in Chicago.

The experts, who also included Bryan Skarlatos, of Kostelanetz & Fink in New York, and Martin Press, of the Gunster law firm in Fort Lauderdale, said it would be difficult to pinpoint the amount of Medicare tax that went unpaid without additional financial detail. But they estimated it could amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

In a written response to questions on Monday, Gingrich’s campaign spokesman Joe DeSantis said “the salary and distribution were handled properly and legally.”

He declined to allow an interview with Gingrich’s tax preparer.

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