a man (sounds of Indian decent) goes by the name of Officer Eric Johnson called and said i had unpaid taxes going back to 2008-2010 in the amount of $1700. i am military and have always done my taxes on post and i've always gotten money back, never had to pay the IRS. well this guy knew my address and all. i started questioning him and he got a little offensive. when i asked for his ID #, he gave me ID #: EJU0749 and hung up right away. i was ready to go to the JAG office and all to see what was this all about, but my wife remembered watching the news or reading it somewhere about IRS Scams. sure enough i googled it and all these 202#s showed up regarding the scam. the ID # he gave me he probably just made that up. these people need to get a life!!! they are the ones that needs to be getting arrested for the crime they are committing! WEIRDOS!!!!!
a man (sounds of Indian decent) goes by the name of Officer Eric Johnson called and said i had unpaid taxes going back to 2008-2010 in the amount of $1700. i am military and have always done my taxes on post and i've always gotten money back, never had to pay the IRS. well this guy knew my address and all. i started questioning him and he got a little offensive. when i asked for his ID #, he gave me ID #: EJU0749 and hung up right away. i was ready to go to the JAG office and all to see what was this all about, but my wife remembered watching the news or reading it somewhere about IRS Scams. sure enough i googled it and all these 202#s showed up regarding the scam. the ID # he gave me he probably just made that up. these people need to get a life!!! they are the ones that needs to be getting arrested for the crime they are committing! WEIRDOS!!!!!
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://m.ndtv.com/article/india/ex-call-centr ... 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:
Had a person with a very hard to understand accent claiming to Mike Johnson from the IRS asking me to call back. This appears to be the classic IRS scam. Reported the call to http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml.