Ignore. Total scam. Originates in India. Never call these people back, or talk to them. They tend to pick on women, single mothers, the elderly and members of the immigrant community. They are predators and usually have some financial information and personal information. They are looking for vulnerable people. If you call them back and they sense you are vulnerable in some sense or another, they might simply hammer you with even more calls. Ignore them and block their calls.
Same threats but from IRS. A man with Filipino or Chinese accent left a message about IRS tax fraud, urgent matter. He called from two numbers, both with 202 area code, including this one.
We called the other 202 241 8224 number back on a speaker phone. My husband and I heard a different accent, that started like Middle Eastern or Indian. Difficult to understand. The accent changed to East European or Russian after two minutes, as if the other side was using a voice filter software. We also heard background noise, and two words we recognized were Ahmed and Moulana (Maulana ??). May be a Muslim gang somewhere.
Anyway, the guy wanted money or something, right now with 'green dot' card - I don't what that is. He said I must pay for alleged IRS fraud by me, or face arrest within an hour. He had my old information right and also my phone number - I don't know how. I told him to stop this scam, to work in a real job, or ask his stupid Allah for money. He started yelling. My husband ended the scam call.
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: