IRS scam phone calls

[rwsaunders]

Weird....I received what I could tell was a scam call (a dude with an Indian accent claimed that he was from the IRS) this afternoon and then I read this article on CNN later this evening. The description of the call on CNN is exactly the script that they followed when they left a voicemail. Here's the number that phoned me just in case...646-658-3161.

IRS scam costing victims $15 million - CNN.com

[joosttx]

My wife got one this week but different from this scam above. The guy on the line said he was with the IRS and that we won an IRS lotto-like drawing for $5000. My wife laughed at him and asked him if had a small penis.

[steve d]

I got that call over the summer. Here's my story:

http://blog.talkwithdavis.com/i-almo...-to-a-scammer/

[Mabouya]

I got that call over the summer. Here's my story:

http://blog.talkwithdavis.com/i-almo...-to-a-scammer/

Interesting.

About the quote below from your piece: something that really bugs me about the "LifeLock" ID protection industry is that they have zero interest in having the problem go away, and in fact the worse it gets, the more people who are subjected to this, the happier they are. It's almost as if they are partners of the ID scammers. For all I know, they are.

even more pervasive is the ongoing threat of identity theft. Being vigilant before the fact is obviously important, but should you ever fall victim to any type of identity fraud, be sure to act quickly.

[j44ke]

Keep a police whistle by the phone.

[Jake Rosenfeld]

I got a call supposedly from my bank but before he'll go any further he wants me to verify my social.
I just chuckle and tell him give it to me and I'll tell him if he's right or not, he replies that he won't give out my info over the phone....... So I told him thanks for looking out for me and that he was doing a good job.

I got the feeling he didn't like me much :)

[Mabouya]

Or you could have said that it's 867-53-0900.

[Jake Rosenfeld]

Took me a minute but I got it.........I got it.......... I got your number on the wal-awl...

[davids]

We've been getting these repeatedly on voice mail. I wasn't fooled for a second.

[Peter Polack]

Who here is DYING to get one of those calls so they can "eff" with the caller?

Any good suggestions on how to torment them?

[EricKeller]

I got called by one of those scammers, and I asked him what it felt like working for criminals. He started talking to himself, "why some people have to answer the phone, just let it ring..."

I also told a guy that wanted to talk to the person that bought electricity (at work) that I was looking out my office window at the smoke stack of our electric plant -- which is true.

I told a guy who said he was from Microsoft tech support that I had an apple II

I yelled at some guy that kept calling over and over -- for some reason never when I was at my desk. It turned out he had the wrong number.

[fairwent]

I keep an air horn by the phone for such callers. It works well with people calling with credit card offers too. One blast of the air horn and they tend to take me off the list.

[SteveP]

David,

It is a coincidence that was my phone number.

Did you send the prepaid card yet?

[David Tollefson]

I'm just waiting for my 19-month-old to start really talking so I can hand her the phone...

[Mabouya]

For years I've been getting messages at home where the caller either says "May I please speak to Louis? [which really is my first name] Hello? Hello?" or they skip the intro and just say "Hello, Hello" then hang up. No "I'm so-and-so, please call me back at xxx-xxxx" or anything like that. If they really want to talk to me, why don't they leave a call-back number? To make things worse, they always call during the day when I'm not home. The background noises seem to indicate the they're in a loud office, so I'm guessing that it's some debt-collection agency trying to track down an other guy called Louis who owes someone money.

[mg2ride]

Who here is DYING to get one of those calls so they can "eff" with the caller?

Any good suggestions on how to torment them?

The only way to torment them is to simply waste their time and keep them on the phone as long as possible. Beyond that, there is not much you can do.

To confuse them, as soon as I think it is a scam I say that I'm very busy and ask if we can go straight to the part where I give them my credit card or bank account number.

They almost always claim they were not going to ask for either so I simply tell them if they change their mind they can call back later. Then I hang up. They almost never call back.