Scammer says from Frank Jones' office in IRS Federal Tax Investigation and Audit Department. Male with heavy Asian accent. Says he is transferring you to Frank Jones (or other agent); after time lapse, same voice comes back claiming to be the other person. Very belligerent; says they have discovered money that is being hidden; warrant issued for arrest. Will leave a message with above phone and answers as IRS; but, if you call back after 6 or 7PM, audio message says 'Magic Jack customer not available at this time'.
I Got a call for my mom and the man said It was an IRS agent and had my mom's name and address ... He patched me to his "supervisor" who claimed that there was an investigation on my poor mother and her found her taxes were done wrong for 15 years!! Luckily I knew it was a scam. I said to the man " are you kidding me" and he told me to calm down.. I wish I got more information from him so that they could catch these people. He had a very strong Indian accent. I told him I knew he was trying to scam me and then he proceeded and tried to threaten me. Telling me That He would send an agent to the house to collect what she owed the US government, but he wanted to make sure that We had the money to cover it. This whole time he didnt tell me how much she owed and I told him Do you really think I am stupid and i am going to tell you what i have. I told him again that I am not an Idiot, I knew he was scamming me & that he didn't even speak English well and I Hung up....I wish i didn't get so angry and would be able to get more information from them. I hope they catch these people trying to scam innocent people and threaten them!!.
This is a Pakistan or India based IRS scam. Do not fall for it. The IRS does not initiate any legal action via phone.
Read http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/press/press_tigta-2014-03.htm
As general background information, here are a few things you can do:
1) Report it to TIGTA under http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml especially if you have become a victim (lost money, gave personal information etc.). You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint (include “IRS Telephone Scam" in your complaint). This way you can also help the government establish specific fraud patterns.
2) Help kill their phone lines. The scammers use Voice over IP lines (e.g. magicJack (Ymax corporation)) to make it seem as if they are calling from the US. This is always against these companys' terms of service and can lead to immediate termination of their contract and blocking of their IP addresses for future attempts to register. Do a reverse look up of their telephone number (e.g. www.whitepages.com) to identify the Voice over IP provider and report it to the company and/or law enforcement (local police and/or state attorney general)
3) If you are really annoyed: call or write to your representative in Congress. As these scams happen all over the country maybe this will trigger a reaction and provide US law enforcement agencies with the political backing and the resources they need to work in India and Pakistan together with local authorities (it can happen, read: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ex-call-cen ... mmission-320427). A US task force has already been set up in Jamaica to nab scammers there (see http://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/library/reports/cornerstone/cornerstone7-1.pdf). You can use the following template for your letter (more powerful!) or email: