Posted on 11/02/2018 1:23:40 PM PDT by lulu16
100 percent scam! Have some fun with it. When they threaten to come arrest you, tell them to bring a Slurpee!
I concur with the assertion that it is a scam, not from the IRS.I note that a few months ago I got a letter from the IRS dunning me for $3K which I didn’t owe. I took that letter to my tax preparer, and he wrote a response disagreeing with the IRS’s claim, and adducing the facts supporting my case. About two months after that, I received a letter from the IRS admitting that I was in the right.
The tax preparer did charge me $175 for the letter by, tho . . .
“...others said that Indians were on the other side of the line”
Cleveland Indians?
American Indians?
Hindu Indians?
He’s a good grandson. God bless him. And WOW. 1hr 20min has got to be a record. My mother is in her 80s and is aware of these scammers. I do want to warn her what I read in one of the other comments about the new trick to have the “police” call 5 minutes later but using a hacked number indicating her local police on caller ID. I hadn’t heard that one. Going to let her know that.
I get those about once a week. The IRS doesn’t call. Another one is “we are calling about your credit card account”, but never say which one. SCAM!
All VM for me as I never answer my phone unless it’s someone on my contact list.
ETL wrote: “There is a fairly common scam that’s been going around for at least a couple years involving phonies claiming to be from the IRS, warning that an arrest warren has been issued on you, and that they are monitoring your every move.”
I got several of these calls, the first clue was when they said: “The cops will come for you.” “Cops”, not police.
I also get a couple of calls a week that have been ‘monitoring my credit cards’ and want to save me money on interest. I haven’t paid interest on a credit card in many years.
My HP officejet printer has a fax included which I have connected to my phone landline. Caller ID shows source of call and those I see are robo calls I let phone ring 5 times, then the fax answers the phone and the caller gets to listen to the fax sound. So, if you have Caller ID and landline phone, you can also do the same.
I used to coach and have a couple of whistles. Maybe I can break their eardrums with one! But then they're only trying to make a living. < /sarc >
Apparently my pharmacy outsources their medication follow-up calls to somewhere over there. I had a call from a heavily accented woman confirming the meds I take and asking if I had questions, and thanking me for the business.
I haven’t had a land line in 10 years.
Yeah, I get those from time to time. I tell’em to F off then hang up.
Oh, he tied up a refund scammer for over 4 hours once. He regularly ties up tech support scammers for 2+ hours. I work in the tech industry so I’ve heard about these scams for a long time, but it’s interesting to see how they do it and I’ve even learned a few things. Some of my co-workers have tied up tech support scammers too when they’ve called, and some of them even worked at Microsoft at one point in their careers. LOL.
It all looked and sounded staged to me.
.
I have gotten four of these calls. I ignore them. The IRS does not call you. They contact you through the mail. They do not at first threaten you. They simply present the problem. You handled it well so far.
Best thing to do if you have a smart phone with "do not disturb" setting, set it to on and if available, limit all incoming calls to those who are in your contacts list..........
Any calls coming in to you that aren't in your contacts will not ring on your phone. If it's someone that really wants to talk to you, they will leave a message in your voice mail. If no message left, then simply block the number but after time, you will have hundreds of blocked numbers since they never call back from the same number and there are millions of phone number combinations they can use..........So how did that Congress Govt. approved "Do not call list" work out?..................LOL!
The IRS never calls you. Everything is by mail, then registered mail, then a couple of big guys at the door.
The IRS does not call!
The IRS NEVER calls anyone! Even the worst tax evading law breakers. The only way the IRS contacts anyone is through the US Mail!
This happened to me twice in the last year and a half.
The first time I played along and told them I was on the way to Best Buy to get Apple Itunes gift cards (gee, that’s not suspicious or anything) when actually I took my dog to the dog park and let him play and run around. Finally after stringing the guy along, he finally figured out from all the dogs barking and running around that I was not in fact on the way to buy any gift cards. He had some unkind words to say as I laughed at his impotent rage.
The second time (again obviously Indians from their accent), I strung him along and he told me the cops were coming to arrest me. I told him to tell them that I would be waiting for them.
Naked.
With all my guns. :^)
He seemed confused. Then I had an unkind suggestion that let him know I had been playing him the whole time.
Many times, from different numbers. The number shown on caller id is meaningless.
My fav is a person with an Eastern Asian accent telling me he’s (or she) is calling me from “Microsoft Control” and saying they are getting messages that my computer has been attacked and is full of viruses.
I ask, “Which computer are you talking about?” They usually reply “Your computer.”
I reply, “I know. But which of the six computers I own are you talking about?”
That usually slows them down.
Or, I play along till they mention Windows. “Oh, my computer isn’t running Windows, it’s running Linux.”
My troll is to keep them on the line as long as possible. I’m retired so time is what I’ve got. They ask me to type something, I make a “typo” on purpose and tell them I’m getting an error message. We can usually play with that for several minutes.
My record is 52 minutes during which time I spoke with four different people. Interestingly, each of the four people spoke better English than those before.
What a hoot.
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