202-499-6435

Got a call this morning from unknown caller, so didn't answer and message left was a female with some foreign accent, hard to understand some parts. She claimed to be calling from the legal affairs of the us dept of treasury, internal revenue service. Said she was calling about an important issue and they had been trying to contact me for the last month and months (her words). Said it was important that I call back as soon as possible to 202-499-6435 and something about an afidavit and my name on it. She said that it is very important to call back and if I find a reason to call back, I may want my attorney to make the call and that if I don't call back, they will be forced to contact the local authorities and inform them of the situation. Sheesh!

they are saying that there is an internal revenue warrant out against my name and that I need an attorney...
does anyone know if there is anything legintimate? they gave me a case # and everything.....

There is NOTHING legitimate about this. These are overseas criminals operating out of boiler rooms attempting to extort money for non-existent debts.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today warned consumers about a sophisticated phone scam targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, throughout the country.

Victims are told they owe money to the IRS and it must be paid promptly through a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer. If the victim refuses to cooperate, they are then threatened with arrest, deportation or suspension of a business or driver’s license. In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting.

“This scam has hit taxpayers in nearly every state in the country.  We want to educate taxpayers so they can help protect themselves.  Rest assured, we do not and will not ask for credit card numbers over the phone, nor request a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer,” says IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel. “If someone unexpectedly calls claiming to be from the IRS and threatens police arrest, deportation or license revocation if you don’t pay immediately, that is a sign that it really isn’t the IRS calling.” Werfel noted that the first IRS contact with taxpayers on a tax issue is likely to occur via mail
Other characteristics of this scam include:
Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.
Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security Number.
Scammers spoof the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it’s the IRS calling.
Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls.
Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.
After threatening victims with jail time or driver’s license revocation, scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim.
If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, here’s what you should do:
If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue – if there really is such an issue.
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 as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484.
If you’ve been targeted by this scam, 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.
Taxpayers should be aware that there are other unrelated scams (such as a lottery sweepstakes) and solicitations (such as debt relief) that fraudulently claim to be from the IRS.
The IRS encourages taxpayers to be vigilant against phone and email scams that use the IRS as a lure. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email to request personal or financial information.  This includes any type of electronic communication, such as text messages and social media channels. The IRS also does not ask for PINs, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts. Recipients should not open any attachments or click on any links contained in the message. Instead, forward the e-mail to phishing@irs.gov.

More information on how to report phishing scams involving the IRS is available on the genuine IRS website, IRS.gov.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Warns-of-Pervasive-Telephone-Scam

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 but not by calling them back direction  (the number may be spoofed and repeat calls by you may - under exceptional circumstances- amount to harassment). 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:

https://800notes.com/forum/ta-a9526ebadc65cf9 ... 558497927242748

Received a call this morning (let it go to voice mail as it was listed as unavailable)  Text was the same as reported by Jeff above!

This afternoon, 11/25/2014, we received a message.   Both the message and the female caller was exactly as Jeff (posted 11/24) described on his post.  So, because it claimed to originate from the Dept. of Treasury or IRS, I got curious and called the number 202-499-6435.  The automated  ' wait'  voice that responded stated that my call was queued and an agent will be available in 1 minute.  So while waiting,  I decided  to  go to the internet and inquired about area code 202.  I discovered to see the links associated with the area code 202 and the scams associated with it.  I quickly hung up.  It's been a very disturbing 2 hours.

Same story as Jeff. Happened on Tuesday. We blocked the number and reported it to the police.

Received a call same as jeff.

Got the exact same message as Jeff, twice! they called me 3 times and the lady was very difficult to understand on the first message, then the second call was a voicemail just of a hang up, the third was the exact same as the first but slightly clearer to understand this woman with a possible middle eastern accent.

Received a robo call from heavy accented woman.  Told to call 202-499-6435.  Asked them to identify themselves.  I spoke with a John Cooper and they were officers of the IRS, even gave me an ID#.  It was kinda funny how they answered all of my questions.  And when I found the posting about their work they hung up on me.  How can we stop this?