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:
I have a voice message left at my home phone yesterday. I then call this number today and they picked up the phone and said that this is IRS(US Govt) and he pretended like IRS agent and asked me to confirm my home address and last 4 digits of SSN. Then he said that i have voilated IRS rules, so the only option is to pay $3557according to IRS Auditor. He said I can either hire a criminal lawyer that cost me over $10,000 or i can just pay off $3557 immediately to stop to criminal action immidiately. he said, i have to hire criminal lawyer in next 30 minutes, so he convinced me to choose to pay off $3557. If i disconnect the call, then he will issue a criminal action immediately, so i will be arested. He asked me don't discounnect phone, so he asked me drive to the nearest bank and with draw $3557 cash and go to kroger and buy band paper and give me band papper number, so he can stop the criminal action. And i can go to a lawyer and request for lower the amount later. Long story short, just ignore this number. You can still call this number and some guy will answer and ask for you name and last 4 digits of SSN
I just received a call on my cell from this number. I didn't recognize the number & have no one in DC so I didn't answer. Thanks everyone for the heads up. I have also been receiving calls from Jamaica (876 area code) from multiple numbers that I have not answered. Be careful scams are rampant it seems!
answered the phone with the above phone number and was wanting to deliver a half million win, but it would cost almost four thousand delivery fee. i hung up the phone.
thank you for the alert everyone. It's so great when we all work together to protect each other. The caller threatened to be IRS and demand money. They called on Sunday early in the am which is weird to begin. Take care all and thank you.