wherein Liz encounters a telephone scam

[edenfalling]

Ahaha, I just got one of those fake-IRS scam phone calls -- you know, the ones with the pre-recorded voice full of ~ominous pauses~ that says something to the effect of, "Hello. We have been trying to reach you. This is your last notice. The reason we have been trying to reach you. Is that the IRS is filing a lawsuit against you," blah blah blah, and then presumably goes on to say that your only hope is to immediately send money by X method to Y account, but I hung up before the robo-voice could reach that point because A) that is not how the IRS does stuff -- they send you physical mail and they always use your actual name, among other things -- and B) I have heard of this scam, and though wildly amused to have someone try it on me, was not feeling quite that indulgent.

This particular scammer's number, incidentally, was 360-780-3810. Is there a procedure for reporting such calls?

...

I am still annoyed that the automatic no-call list for cell phones is no longer a thing.

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ETA: I reported the call to the FTC, since the IRS didn't seem to have a procedure for robo-calls rather than actual humans impersonating IRS agents. It turns out that I did put my phone on the Do Not Call registry all the way back in 2006, but I guess the FTC has been very swamped this year, since I have received more junk calls in 2015 than in all previous years put together. (I am not including charities, etc., since the registry explicitly does not cover them. But like, NJ-based carpet cleaners? That is clearly something that should have been blocked, and wasn't. I think I will make a point of reporting such things from now on.)

Comments

[monkey5s]

The fake IRS scam calls that I get usually want you to press a number to talk to a representative now! Because it will be TOO LATE if you don't!! I read about it on a few websites that track telemarketing scams, the people who reported, if they did call the rep, were told to go to a certain place and buy a disposable debit card to load with the hilariously exorbitant amount of back taxes they owed. A couple of people told the rep that they were going to report this number as soon as they hung up. The one rep told the caller that he didn't care, they had hundreds of phone numbers to rotate through. Classy, huh?

[edenfalling]

Oh, just super classy. The classiest. *makes face*

I am a particularly bad target for IRS scams because I am now a (baby) trained tax preparer, and as such I can look at my old tax returns and state with complete confidence that I do not owe any back-taxes whatsoever. But that is not a luxury most people have.