Received a call from this number that the IRS is suing me. I called it back and spoke to a heavily accented male. When I asked him what he was calling about he asked if it was Mary "Smith" (maybe 15 years ago that was my last name); I told him it was not and hung up.
Female voice left message saying it was an official final notice that "Internal revenue services" (sic) was filing a lawsuit. Said to call back the above number. No name of caller or alleged defendant was given. Some subtle non-native speaker clues, such as a missing article.
Scam!
(1) The name of the real agency is SINGULAR!
(2) The telephone is NOT legal for service of process. At LEAST a certified letter is needed.
(3) IRS knows the names of the legal persons it is suing.
When I answered this call from Bellevue, WA, the recording said that the Internal Revenue Services was filing a lawsuit against me & that I should call them back. When I called back to see what kind of lowlifes would try to scam people like that someone from India with a thick accent in a boiler room answered the phone as "Officer Robinson". I told him that that I'm filing a complaint with the FCC and he responded with a stream of obscenities that lasted for 10 mins before he hung up. I wanted to see how long he would go on spewing things I can't post here plus I wanted to waste as much of his time as possible so at least he wouldn't be preying on any vulnerable people during that time.
I think I had the MOST fun with these people just now! My roomie was laughing his butt off the whole time.
I kept them on the phone to try to get as much info about them as I could for reporting to the FBI.
I got the recorded message. The recording was a woman with a foreign accent so right away you know it is bogus EVEN IF YOU SHOULD BY CHANCE owe the IRS any money.
So I thought I'd have a little Saturday morning fun and I called back.
I got "Officer John Seigel" who gave me his badge number IRM96325
He had such a heavy accent I had a hard time understanding him.
He explained that the IRS had filed a lawsuit against me because I owed $6592.47
He said an office named "Jackson Brown" came to my house on March 24, 2015 but no one was home.
He said the next steps are, they have a warrant for my arrest and will confiscate my driver's license, property, home and bank accounts, and I will be sentenced to 5 years in jail.
I said, oh, I MUST pay the money right away! Tell me where and how do I pay the money?
The agent seemed surprised that I would ask how I should pay the money so quckly.
He said he would have to give me over to his "senior supervisor" to explain how to use the Electronic Funds Transfer Payment System of the IRS online.
The supervisor was a woman also with a heavy accent who said her name was "Kathy Benson."
She went into her spiel about, was I going to pay or would I like to fight this on the courthouse steps?
She was also very hard to understand.
I told her I was elderly and did not have a computer to make the payment from the EFTPS of the IRS.
I asked her why I could not pay by check and she said that would take three days and the warrant is already out for my arrest so the only way to do it was the EFTPS.
So I said, well how can I do that?
She then started asking me what my bank was.
I said, why do you need to know that?
As soon as I said that she hung up on me!
I called back and another guy with an accent said that if I could not use the EFTPS system, he could not help me.
Clearly they are looking to scam people using instant transfers and I'm sure had I proceeded with "Kathy Benson" she would have taken my bank account number and instructed me to transfer funds to her account somewhere in Nigeria.