Just had a call from 202-239-0068, twice on my cell and a message on landline from "IRS Agent Robin".
He quoted my first name , middle initial and last name and claimed that he had a report on me with some serious IRS fraud allegations and that I must call back on the above number immediately. This scared the bejeezers out of my wife who picked up the message, but I KNOW that the IRS do not call as a first move, they mail documents to initialise any action or to start an enquiry.
Worryingly the only place that these scammers could have got the information they have on me in this format is from my resumé as I am out of work and have sent my resumé to numerous recruiting sites as well as the EDD recruitment site.
I will pass this info on to the IRS in the hope that they can shut down this one line at least.
Never confirm or give out any personal info over the phone and don't be intimidated by these scum.
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:
S C A M !!! After calling back repeatedly (to tie up their phone lines) these idiots got irate. My 'penalty fee' shot up from $937 to $69,000 and they are sending the police to arrest me....HA. Not very effective, but sad that they must be hooking people. If you have a little extra time, call and string them along....as long as you can...and then keep calling over and over!
I got a voice mail from an "Officer Henry" from 202-600-4284. I called the number back after *67 to block my number and asked for "Officer Henry" they said no one was there by that name. So I called them back again and asked if they were the tax scam guys the voice said:"who is this"..........I proceeded to tell him they they sucked and he hung up in my face.