A "Mr. Robinson" called from the US Treasury. He told me the treasury was filing a law suit against me. He asked for my attorney's name and fax number. At this point I told him that the treasury does not works this way. I told him not to call back. We will see what happens next. Our experience has been that these guys often call back.
Confirmed fraud attempt (Department of legal affairs of US Treasury script). 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:
Just received a phone call from "Steve Robinson from the Dept of the Treasury, wanting to speak to a family member. When asked what it was about, he said, "It's a legal matter." When asked where he was calling from, he said," Washington DC. Have him call me at (202) 241-8968."
Just got a message from Steve Robinson with a Pakistani accent obviouly reading from a script. I called back and the message said that it ws the legal department of the U S Treasury. It has the feel of a scam.