209-710-5823

Claims to be from FBI and a warrant has been issued - Scam

"Your physical address is under investigation and a warrant has been issued for your arrest"
Really?  And you want me to call a purported California number?  Hahahahaha!
Total scam.

Same "FBI is investigating your address...."  Call them back and demanded the PHYSICAL ADDRESS they're talking about.  Indian guy on the phone said he's with the crime division of the Internal Revenue Service.  I demanded to talk to the FBI because the message states "FBI.. and I don't give a [***] about IRS"... He hung up.

I got off work today and had a couple of missed calls from a phone number in Los Banos, CA that I didn't know/recognize. (209) 710-5823 I saw that they left a voicemail. Perfect! I can see what they wanted.
Luckily my iPhone sometimes (haha) transcribes my voicemails to make them "visual voicemails" so I can read them as well as listen to them. Here's a transcript of said voicemail.

"Hey this is Officer Catherine Richardson badge number 002569 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This message has been sent to you as a final notification against your case with the Department of Tax and Crime Investigation. Right now your physical address is under investigation and an arrest warrant has been issued under your name. For further queries and resolving this case contact the below number of the Tax and Crime Investigation Department. (209) 710-5823 I repeat (209) 710-5823. Thank you."

Number one, this was OBVIOUSLY a recorded robot voice (red flag #1). Number two, my name or address were never mentioned in the voicemail.

Intrigued, I called the number back. An Indian man answers the phone (red flag #2). He proceeds to tell me that I will get arrested if I do not pay the amount of back taxes I owe from the audits done from 2012 on. There were NUMEROUS errors on the taxes I filed and I am being charged with tax evasion. He rattles off some amount of $5k and threatens me with arrest again. I proceed to tell him I cannot pay $5k today, that's ludicrous. He says that I can do a payment plan but I have to put something down today to get me started. I tell him there's no way I can do that. I just started my new job yesterday. I have no money. He proceeds to ask me if I can borrow $500 from friends or family to pay today (red flag #3). At this point, I'm just having fun with the dude cause I know it's a scam. I ask for information in writing as this is the first time I'm hearing about this and he feeds me a line about it taking 7 business days to do that and I'll just be arrested if I don't pay. He finally got so frustrated that HE hung up on ME. 😂
But for real friends, THIS IS A REAL SCAM. I did some follow up researched the the federal government has been investigating this since 2012/2013 and made arrests in 2016.

BUT IT IS OBVIOUSLY STILL GOING ON.

There is a website set up to report these calls to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml

I was also able to find a press release about the situation and arrests that were made in 2016. Granted, it was in October of 2016 but as I said, THIS IS STILL GOING ON.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yZ-jszSuZA

So please, if you or anyone you know has received a call like this...REPORT IT!! There was a woman in California that fell to the pressure of the caller and was taken for $12,000. Another man was taken for over $100,000.

These scare tactics are real and they will call anyone to try to get anything they can from them.

Also just a heads up people. After 5 years the government doesn't audit you. They only go back 5 years for auditing. So that's a red flag also. Of course there are exceptions. But the message above  is exactly what mine was.  They probably don't even have my name on address they just got my number somehow.