yesterday, i received a call from this number. since i didn't recognize the number, i let my answering machine pick up the call. here's the message they left me: "This message is meant for <my name>. This is investigation officer Jim Marshall from Internal Revenue Services. This call is regarding the warrant (unclear) against your name and your passport is kept on hold by the US government. Your warrant ID is CM10010. So I want you to call me on urgent basis. The hotline to my division is 202-204-0484. I repeat it is 202-204-0484. Again this is officer Jim Marshall with Internal Revenue Services, Washington DC. Have a good day." i did not return the call until it was well after office hours. it went straight to a mailbox with a nondescript outgoing message (no mention of the IRS). "Jim Marshall" did speak with a distinctly indian accent (i should know, i am indian-american myself). apparently, these scamsters are targeting immigrants. see http://stlouis.bbb.org/article/st-louis-count ... bbb-warns-44018
in order to make sure that this is indeed a hoax and not the result of some mail that i missed, i called the IRS. i've been on hold for over 2 hours.
The most damaging thing you can do to these people is to take up their time. I have had several of these and I am still laughing as I just got one. I pretend that the computer is slow and that it takes quite a while to boot. I then play dumb and have a rough time finding the keys that they want me to use. When they ask for the CTRL key I say that I pressed it and it did nothing. They then say that it is not the key they wanted and to find the windows key next to it. I say that I pressed it and a box comes up. By this time the last dude was yelling at me. NO NO don't press anything unless I tell you. Then they want you to type in the address for their web site. He said 121 dot. I repeated 121 and spelled DOT. NO NO not spell DOT, press the dot key. You mean period? Yes. Then substitute 8 for H and so forth. What ever you do, do not go into the web site, just keep them going as long as you can before they hang up on you. For heavens sake do not give out any information about you especially your credit card number and don't let them into your computer by downloading their program. Tell them the door bell rings and you have to answer it, the baby is crying, you have to pee, the computer locks up and you have to reboot it and so on. Keep them on the phone as long as possible. If you hang up on them, they just go to the next person and that is what they want if they can't rip you off. Let's get back at these scammers. Spread the word around with your neighbors, relatives and friends about this scam. If they don't make any money at it, they will stop.
On a different type of scam, the same playing dumb seemed to work well. It's also funny- Google the name Anthony H Slowitz, and skip down a few posts, and you'll see the similarity.