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:
SCAM!!! Claimed to be IRS calling, message stated to return call to prevent further action against us, and then wished us to 'have a nice day.' Was a robot recorded call. The IRS would never make such a call, they would send official correspondence.
I got a call this morning from 202-241-7158. Left a badly recorded message on my phone. I called them back and a man named David [couldn't understand the last name] answered and said he was with the Internal Revenue Service. He said they had initiated a case against me and asked me if I was aware of it. I said no and he said he was going to read some kind of legal record to me and to not interrupt, that afterwards I could ask questions. He had a heavy Arabic accent and I said I meant no disrespect but I was having a hard time understanding him. He immediately got mad, said I had an attitude and that I could just wait for the police to come and put me in handcuffs at my address. Then he hung up on me. He sounded VERY official and convincing. I googled the number and my first search, first item said this: 202-241-IRS. I was really scared then. We have all heard about the IRS being obnoxious. Then thought that an IRS agent surely wouldn't hang up on me, so searched more and found info on scams and this site.
Fyi, this guy had his speal down pat, and it was very scary. One reverse search I did said the number was a Magicjack phone number. Logic says the IRS wouldn't use a magicjack, lol, but I'm still a little freaked out.
This is just not right. Only advise I can give is don't give them any more information than they already have. They obviously had a phone number but am not sure if they had my name. "David" said for verification purposes he needed my name, so now they have my first name. Ughhh.
I feel sorry for the elderly who may be getting this same call and not have the resources to find out its a scam.