I.R.S. scam message on my cell phone

[Brule]

Just got a message to call the I.R.S. back at (530) 876-6477 for some legal trouble I was in. Some indian accent computer-ish dude left message. Weird thing is that they knew my name and it was my cell phone.

Oddly I just bought a car this weekend and gave out a lot of personal info during that process. Watch out!

 

[callbay]

I got almost the same message a week ago. The Indian guy said there was "issues" with my tax return and he also knew my name and cell phone #. I hung up on the guy he called me back all mad and said why did I hang up so I said don't ever call back and hung up again.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

A coworker of mine (Ironically from India) has been receiving them too ... it started before he filed a return.

 

[Andy636]

You do realize that for $35/mo there are websites that are going to give away cell phone owner's name, address, family members and household income...right?

 

[JayhawkRoy]

From irs.gov/newsroom:
If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats...), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.

If you’ve been targeted by these scams, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov. Please add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments of your complaint.

Recommend you take the time to do this.

 

[Vikas]

IRS? Wait until you get call from "Federal Fraud Division" threatening to put you in the jail right now!

 

[RF Overlord]

Or the pop-up from "the FBI" claiming you've downloaded kiddie porn and they have "encrypted the contents of your hard drive and locked your computer". All I had to do was pay a $300 "fine" and they'd unlock it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I will admit it did look pretty official and took me off guard for a few seconds, until I realised that the text was written by someone whose native language was NOT English.

 

[Vikas]

If those guys could set up their shop somewhere where they speak English, they will do lot better in terms of reeling in all the suckers.