I am here in Oregon and I have received 5 calls in the last two weeks to my cell phone with phone number
571-210-1297 claiming to be the IRS. His name is Johnathon Knight and he stresses urgency as I am guilty of tax fraud and I better call back immediately. Does not give his number but it shows on caller ID and upon calling it back it just rings. Next time I will pick up my cell and see if it is a live guy, because each message he leaves sounds identical, so probably recorded. He has an extremely thick Indian sounding accent and it is barely legible what he is saying.
Received a recorded call saying that I was being audited and that they had discovered that I was hiding income or something from them. I apparently owe them money and it needed to be rectified immediately. Very heavy accent and identified himself as Jonathan Wright. I don't get it. is the scam just to scare people? How would they have gotten their money if I had fallen for it?
I received a call stating they were the IRS and a warrant has been put out for me unless I pay them now.
I told them they were on a recorded line. They hung up.
I called back & they refused to talk to me.
I am pretty sure I'm off their list now. LOL
The point is to scare you into thinking you're going to jail or your house or car will be repossessed, or your wages garnished. Whatever it takes to scare you into thinking you have to do something to stop it. That usually consists of you paying them some lesser amount (so you think you're getting off easy) by some method of payment that cannot be reversed (when you realize you've been scammed.) Those methods vary, but include charging a Green Dot money card and giving the scammer the card number and PIN, or using Western Union to send the cash.
It sounds like it would be an obvious scam, but clearly people fall for it, otherwise they wouldn't keep at it.
5/22/15 just received a voice mail message on my cell phone from Jonathan Knight from the IRS stating extremely urgent that I return his call as fraud has been detecting on my taxes and I need to pay immediately and that I cannot hide. Very thick Indian accent. Maybe he should pay me for wasting my time!