Watch out for this scam

[brush]

Last edited Wed Feb 11, 2015, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)

A call was left on my voice mail yesterday by someone purporting to be from the US Treasury Department requesting that I call them back. The message advised me not to ignore the call as there would be severe legal penalties if I did.

I retrieved my messages after 5:00 pm but I called the number back to see if someone was still in the office but got voice mail to call in the morning.

I called in the morning and was adviced that I owed $8900 from my 2007 taxes. I answered that that didn't seem right as I had gotten no notice from the IRS.

The alleged agent said that letters had been sent and not responded to and that there was now a warrant out for my arrest, which would happen in 45 minutes.

I said "wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't be serious."

The "agent" said, "you think this is funny? I'm sending field agents to you house right now" and he hung up.

I was a little shocked by the abrupt hangup but now I was getting suspicious as I've been audited before and had to make installments to the IRS before and they always send warning letters so I called the guy back and asked "what can we do to work this out?"

He then asked me how much money could I come up with. I knew it was a scam then when he mentioned money. I told him maybe two grand as it was such short notice. The guy said I had to come up with more than that.

That's when I told him "I'll have my lawyer call you as this sounds like a scam to me" and I hung up.

I haven't heard anything from the "agent" since then. So look out everyone, this is probably going around.

[Frustratedlady]

1. There have been numerous warnings on DU and various social sites

about these calls.

Beware.

[elleng]

2. I've received 2 calls from 'the IRS' in the last couple of weeks,

neither of which I responded to. IRS will send letters, DO NOT SEND MONEY TO THIS NUMBER!

[Cha]

3. K

[HeiressofBickworth]

4. My daughter's boss, a CPA

got such a call. She had fun with it, telling the "agent" to bring it on sucker. Never heard back.

[ffr]

5. Better still, don't call the number back, but go to or call your local IRS field office directly.

It may take an hour out of your day to wait to speak to someone, but the IRS will know whether or not you owe them money. And I hardly think they'd use strongarm tactics in a phone conversation to intimidate people to "pay up with everything you've got"...at the moment.

Is this the IRS that Fox Entertainment has always envisioned?

Glad you didn't fall for it.

[GreatGazoo]

6. I have been getting robo called for the last 2 months

"This is Cheryl your local Google specialist..." a bunch of these and they always come from different numbers. If yu call back it goes to an automated IVR that says "press any number to be removed from this list"

"You can make $5000 a day from home...your coach...text us back..."

"This is automated call, can you hear me?"

and I just got a predatory lending offer in the mail ('we want give your small business a loan') so I have come up on the scammers' radar recently.

[safeinOhio]

7. We give up all kinds of 4th Amendment rights to

the NSA. They track every phone call ever made. They sure would get a lot more support if they used all that technology to bust these a**holes.

[Tsiyu]

8. Exactly

They are sitting up there in DC thinking up new ways to invade the privacy of the innocent rather than using all of their new "toys" to actually protect the innocent from true criminals.

It really is sickening.

[Pooka Fey]

9. Kick & Thanks for posting