I got one today too! The man claimed I had a lawsuit against me from the IRS, it was a period of 4 years and that it was 1763.00. He had a very thick Indian accent and there was a lot of noise in his background, I told him that I had trouble understanding him and he got irate with me and told me I was being recorded and to stop interrupting him. WOW. I told him that I have received nothing in the mail, he told me that information had already been sent 3 times to my home, I asked for the dates, he put me a fast hold and gave me a date in January that was a Sunday, long story short, after arguing with him that if he were indeed the IRS, they could surely send another notice and work out payments. I hung up. This scared me, he had good tactics but after he informed they would not send me another...buh-bye.
Got a call from this number on hour teen line around 6 pm. At first there was no one on the other end and then an automated female voice said "Good Bye".
These people have changed their M.O. They called me recently and said they were working to refund money to customers of a computer company in India, I believe, that I'd actually done good business with 2-3 months previously. The computer company supposedly owed taxes and was being forced, as a part of a Court Order in India to pay $ to customers of this company, but could only send $ in increments of $700, and I could use PayPal if I wanted -- this was Friday (February 21, 2014) so, the caller said, that since they only owed me only $300 (the actual charge for my year's contract), I would have to send them $400 by wire or Western Union immediately to make up the difference. (He claimed the transfer had already been made to my PayPal account, but the $ would not hit till Monday. The caller stated that his company was working with my company to see that these refunds were made. He told me to wire the $ to someone allegedly named Animesh Mukherjee, his "supervisor," at +011 918981674477. (When I typed the name into the computer, I learned that there is a renowned and respectable computer professor in India with the same name, but it may just be a very common name or simply made up. I also typed the wire number into Google with no hits. The store clerk would then give me a number that confirmed the wire. If I did NOT immediately send the $400, he would lock and "destroy" the computer so I could not get on it at all. As soon as I typed the store's confirmation # into the computer, he would unlock it. We had "words," and he froze my computer totally. I could not even boot up to Windows without the password I would have allegedly gotten after I supplied proof of payment. Oddly, according to report, in a fair number of these cases, they actually do unlock the computer. However that was then, and this is now. Moreover, you have no idea who you're communicating with. Also, paying the caller "ransom" is cooperation with extortion. Thank heavens I had an external hard drive, as well as total back-up at a remote location! I had my private computer tech. come over and bring my computer back to life. It was a long and expensive process, since -- after he overcame the padlock -- all my (backed-up) data had to be re-formatted. (I can't recall if he told me that the data had been encrypted or not, though they can do that too.) What a nightmare. Moral of the story: get your computer backed up completely. Also, do NOT give remote access to anyone, except friends or privately retained, local technicians whom you know and trust. Believe it or not, someone called me today starting the same story over again (need to refund $, etc.) from a Boston # which came up as a pay phone - (607) 527-8802 - the subject number of this site. Good luck!
These people have changed their M.O. slightly. They called me recently and said they were working to refund money to customers of a computer company that I'd actually done good business with. The company supposedly owed taxes and was being forced, as a part of a Court Order in India to pay $ to customers of this company, but could only send $ in increments of $700, and I could use PayPal if I wanted -- this was Friday (February 21, 2014) so, the caller said, that since they only owed me $300 (the actual charge for my year's contract), I would have to send them $400 by wire or Western Union immediately to make up the difference. (He claimed the transfer had already been made to my PayPal account, but the $ would not hit till Monday. The caller stated that his company was working with my company to see that these refunds were made. He told me to wire the $ to someone allegedly named Animesh Mukherjee, his "supervisor," at +011 918981674477. (When I typed the name into the computer, I learned that there is a renowned and respectable computer professor in India with the same name, but it may just be a very common name or simply made up. I also typed the wire number into Google with no hits. The store clerk would then give me a number that confirmed the wire. If I did NOT immediately send the $400, he would lock and "destroy" the computer so I could not get on it at all. As soon as I typed the store's confirmation # into the computer, he would unlock it. We had "words," and he froze my computer totally. I could not even boot up to Windows without the password I would have allegedly gotten after I supplied proof of payment. Oddly, according to report, in a fair number of these cases, they actually do unlock the computer. However that was then, and this is now. Moreover, you have no idea who you're communicating with. Also, paying the caller "ransom" is cooperation with extortion. Thank heavens I had an external hard drive, as well as total back-up at a remote location! I had my private computer tech. come over and bring my computer back to life. It was a long and expensive process, since -- after he overcame the padlock -- all my (backed-up) data had to be re-formatted. (I can't recall if he told me that the data had been encrypted or not, though they can do that too.) What a nightmare. Moral of the story: get your computer backed up completely. Also, do NOT give remote access to anyone, except friends or privately retained, local technicians whom you know and trust. Believe it or not, someone called me today starting the same story over again (need to refund $, etc.) from a Boston # which came up as a pay phone - (607) 527-8802 - the subject number of this site. Good luck!