IRS Warns of Telephone Scam

Threats of violence is not tolerated and your post has been marked for deletion.

The calls I have been receiving, and there have been MANY have ALL been digital type voices. The first time I heard one was while visiting my 91year old Mother inlaw and it was on her phone messages.  Then shortly after I started to receive them numerous times a day. When they started they were just saying that there was a problem that they needed us to contact them and left a number to call then as time went by the daily calls began to get threatening. NOW, they are Very Adamant that if we  do not return their call that we will be picked up by Our Local Police Department, handcuffed & Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law!!! This has been going on for nearly a year now. These phone calls would scare most people into calling them back. I know it scared my Mother-in-law so much that she wanted me to call them and see what was going on. I told her like I am telling you now that if the IRS needs ANYTHING from you, no matter how small or serious it might be they ALWAYS contact you by Letter first telling you what they need from you. They NEVER contact you by phone.

If they've been calling you "for nearly a year now" have you considered a call blocker?

While a call blocker is a good solution for a lot of unwanted calls, it would not necessarily be a solution for these calls.  I have noticed that, while I have received a number of these calls, I have never received more than one from the same number (I only block for repeated numbers, so blocking is not the reason).  I have also noticed that the number threads reporting these calls only have reports for a few days to a couple weeks.  The scammers seem use the number for a short period of calling and then dump it and move to another number (most likely to avoid being tracked down by the authorities.)  The numbers involved with these calls are spread out over a large number of area codes, so wild card blocking would not be much of a help.  In this case or these "IRS" calls, blocking the numbers would just waste the limited resources of many call blockers.  The best bet for blocking would be a challenge/response type blocker, since these calls all seem to be robo-calls and thus cannot respond to the challenge.

I've noticed that virtually all phone scammers I get calls from these days switch numbers very rapidly now — possibly only using a particular number for only a day or two before switching. That means it's unlikely that their number will show up in a web search (or a search of 800notes) while they're still using it, if at all. I don't get many of these calls these days but of the ones I have received over the past 6 months none has been listed on 800notes. Needless to say, this tactic of switching numbers frequently also defeats call blockers as well as automated services like N@M@robo (as I predicted years ago when it was launched to rapturous and unrealistic expectations).

(Arg, PMA'd due to obvious service reference that Sir B avoided)
I expected the same thing. Worse, is that places like our Nil Robotic friend will start listing numbers of valid businesses because the numbers are spoofed. That is part of the reason I think actually answering the phone and getting to a live agent is the only method to go after these people. They can place millions of calls a day, but they don't have agents to field near that many. Their whole MO now, with all the autodialers and robocalls, currently depends upon normal people not answering calls, or hanging up on robocalls.

Any technological solution we come up with will be defeated by the next round of technology updates. You can't fix a social problem with technology. What they can't do is work around people answering calls and wasting their time - and it's something that any phone anywhere can do. No tech, no services, no subscriptions. In fact, it might even provide them with a real financial encouragement to scrub numbers with the DNC list - since they are more likely to waste their time. After all, if they're not talking to a potential customer, they aren't making money.

I have noticed that trend especially with health insurance calls.  I might get two calls from the same number one day followed by another round of various another numbers which are usually out of state.  Another trend that scammers use is to have a slight variation on neighbor spoofing.  For example:  someone with a (555) 555-**** number might get a call from (555) 554-**** or (555) 556-**** number.  Exchange blockers do exist and scammers add an extra digit or change the format to avoid getting routed directly to voicemail.  I had this experience two weeks ago with the call being a debt reduction scam.  Tormenting Telemarkers is spot on about technology and society.  As the saying goes, "You can’t fix stupid!"

"...this tactic of switching numbers frequently also defeats call blockers..."

Not call blockers of the challenge-response variety.  They block every call, every time...with NO rings.  Only whitelisted numbers get through.

Exactly why we block only the "silent" calls and talk to all the rest.  They hang up on us pretty quickly sometimes but it still wastes some time and maybe they will hang up too soon on someone who might have been swindled otherwise.

I think the silent calls are probably cases where they have too many answered lines, and there's no live agent available (abandoned call). This would be a natural result of more people answering the calls, and not being able to complete a transfer to a live agent. I take this as a good sign. Should a susceptible person answer the call, they might get dead air, too. And the telemarketer is less likely to profit from it.

There are telemarketing companies that will throttle the number of outbound calls depending upon the availability of agents. The more and longer the agents are busy, the less outbound calls are placed. Ideally, every agent is talking to a potential customer, and the autodialers make calls at a rate so that about the time an agent is free a new connected call can be transferred to them. So even answering the "silent" calls can still help reduce the number of outbound calls, and should you eventually get connected, have some fun. For me, it's just another part of trying to use the design of their infrastructure against them.

GregAtTheBeach makes a good point about challenge/response systems (which I consider separate from traditional call blockers) being immune to frequent number switching. I wonder how long it will take for the scammers to come up with a way to circumvent challenge/response systems? It will largely depend on whether such systems are widely adopted. If challenge/response becomes widespread you can be sure the scammers will attack it somehow.

Also: A tactic I've adopted is setting my outgoing voicemail message the start with me saying "Hello?", in the normal tone of voice which I usually answer the phone, followed by 2-3 seconds of silence before the rest of my outgoing message. This tricks many phone bank operators to pick up the line thinking they've got a live person. Anything I can do to make their lives a little more frustrating ;-)

The newest challenge-response blockers allow you to set your own outgoing message.  If the first words are "Dial X", where "X" is the proper digit to get whitelisted, the autodialer hasn't yet transferred the call to a human, and the human never hears the instructions, and they can't dial through.  The next version of challenge-response blocker should allow the buyer to set their own sequence of digits. Are you listening, blocker manufacturers?