I received a phone call a few weeks back from a Steve Martin at 530-532-2612 threatening with a bench warrant for some sort of fraud... blah blah blah. Now this woman Eliza Dusuto at the Department of Legal Affairs called from 202-241-8217 and left 3 messages to call back immediately to avoid a legal action against my name... blah blah blah. Both people had thick Indian accents and were trying to hide it. They are looking for a payday, don't give them one!
This is a criminal extortion scam operating out of India. They are making the calls utilizing VOIP and the names of legitimate firms to make it appear the calls are originating from within the US. There is NO "company" or "debt" and you will NOT be arrested. They are harvesting and/or buying consumers' personal identifying information and you need to do whatever you can to protect yourself. This includes: Notifying the FTC: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/, placing fraud alerts with all three credit bureaus, notifying your bank and employer and letting these criminals know you are aware they are attempting to extort money for a non-existent debt and have alerted the authorities.
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: