For several years and well into 2018, several clients and numerous other people around the country have been getting calls or voicemails from people claiming to be the IRS "Investigative Bureau" or using other names and aliases. These scammers often say that the IRS is going to file a "lawsuit" against you or threaten to take you to jail. Let's be very clear: the IRS would NEVER make a phone call in this way. They would send you a notice first by mail before taking any action. Jail only happens after a long trial for "tax evasion" and never as quickly as the scam indicates.
These scammers will try to get you to load money on a "pre-paid card" that you get a grocery store, etc.. In fact, we met a potential victim who had them on the phone while he drove around town with them giving him instructions to go to Safeway and to buy a pre-paid card there. He eventually figured out they were a scam, but he was almost taken by it. Almost universally, these phone calls come from people with strong Indian accents with very Americanized names like "Daniel Robinson" for example.
Our review of the tracking information of this page indicates to us that the Scam is perpetrated from Call Centers based in India (but maybe Pakistan or Jamaica, also). (Yes - the scammers visit this blog page! They frequently change the phone numbers of the scam after seeing the old numbers in the Comments section below)
The good news is in 2015 and 2016, the scammers were caught, prosecuted and sent to jail. Bad news is new folks are still doing the scam. Most calls today come in the form of a robo-call on your voicemail where you call back and then get lied to by someone in India.
Please post the phone # of your fake IRS scammer and their name in the COMMENTS thread BELOW to help prevent others from being victimized!
