I'm a police officer in the State of Maryland (specifically the Annapolis, MD area). Today I took a report from a person (I'll call him Mr. Doe) who received a phone call from 864-252-8542. Two different men, who identified themselves as agents with the IRS, told Mr. Doe that he owed almost $3000.00 in taxes to the IRS and if he did not pay it he would go to jail.
Fortunately Mr. Doe knew this phone call was a scam. The callers had Mr. Doe's name, address, and obviously his home phone number (this is information easily obtained from the Internet and White Pages).
IT IS A SCAM. DO NOT GIVE THESE THIEVES ANY MONEY OR YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION!!!!!
I received a call for my dad on my phone from an "Officer Daniel" from IRS Criminal Investigat. He left the same exact message that he left on 8/25/14. I am having difficulty understanding every word on the messages due to his accent. The message he left is as follows (as best as I can understand it): "This message is for (my dad's name). (My dad's name), this is Officer Daniel, calling from the Criminal Investigation of the Internal Revenue Service. The moment you get this message, you need to call me on the IRS number under Crime Investigations 864-252-8542 (he repeats the number). There is a notice issue onto your name and are serious allegations pressed against your name, that is an investigation with the Internal Revenue Service. It is a matter of (identity? urgency?) I look forward to working with you. Take care and may God Bless.". I filed a complaint with TIGTA.GOV and the FTC for both incidents. I'm hoping that they can stop this guy!
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:
Left two messages claiming to be an officer of the IRS Crime dept. Says to call him immediately, says he's officer Daniels, ends message with "God Bless" Has an Arabic accent. I'm pretty sure the IRS wouldn't tell me "God Bless" and they would send a letter not leave a message.
Phising scam and attempt to extort $, I did not call and never would.
Pretended to be irs crime investigation nonsense. Complete scam from people who have nothing better to do with their time. Report the Calls to the real IRS here:
•report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.
•You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at FTC.gov. Add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments in your complaint.