On 11/5/14 at 4:16pm, I received a voicemail message on my home telephone landline from a man with an Indian or Pakistani accent claiming to be from the "IRS Crime Investigation Unit". He said his name was John "Weisbeck" (?) - I couldn't clearly make out the last name on the recorded message. He said "the reason OF my call" (note the poor English usage) was to inform me that there is a warrant for my arrest and that my personal property is being investigated. He urged me to call him back by the end of the day at 202-239-6889 to get more information about the "case". This is clearly the same scam that the IRS has been warning the public about.
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 but not by calling them back directly (the number may be spoofed and repeat calls by you may - under exceptional circumstances- amount to harassment). 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:
Got a call from this person claiming to be from the IRS. Said that there was a warrant out for my arrest and that my property was being seized. The accent was fake and sentences grammatically incorrect. I tried calling the number back from another phone and got the message that this 'magic jack' number was unassigned.