A New IRS scam?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I just got call from a person (with an Indian accent) who claims to be calling on behalf of the IRS. He congratulated me on being someone who pays his taxes on time (duh), okay. As a reward, he says that the IRS is going to be giving me $ 5,000, okay.

Spider-sense immediately starts tingling. No way the IRS is giving away money.

I ask him who he is again. He says his name is "“Rohgjeeere Weelyehms, okay,” in that heavy Indian accent. I ask him to spell it. “Capital R-ho-jee-e-er-Dub-u-Ay-Double-Ehl-Ay-Yem-Es, okay.” I ask him to spell it again. After several times of back and forth I finally decipher what he says to be “Roger Williams, okay.” “Roger Williams?” I repeat. “Yes, sir, okay.” Um, yeah, sure, his name is “Roger Williams”. And what’s with all those stupid “okays” at the end of each sentence? He then gives me an ID “I376, okay” in case I wanted to “verify” his story.

I tell him that typically, the IRS would send an official letter whenever they communicate with someone. He acts surprised, saying that the letter should have arrived, okay, but assures me that it’s in the mail, okay, and he’s now ready to take my card information, okay.

A-ha. Gotcha. I clarify how this would work. He explains that they would transfer the money to my card, okay, which will then get transferred to my account, okay. At this point I said I would wait for the official letter, and hung up.

This is obviously a scam, right? The fact that he claims the IRS is giving me money is a dead giveaway. What do you guys think?

(Not sure if this was MPISMS or IMHO, but there is a question at the end. Mods, please feel free to move it if necessary)

2

It is a cute story but I am suprised that you needed to ask for verification of your suspicions here. That sounds like an aggressive and dangerous scam.

3

It’s legitimate. You should’ve gotten your letter by now. Anyway, I can facilitate this for you, just e-mail me your credit card number…

4

Word of advice: if somebody shows up at your front door, tells you you’ve won a free tank of gas, and asks for your car keys so they can drive your car down to the station and fill it up for you - that’s also very likely to be a scam.

5

That must be a very common name in India. I think I’ve gotten calls from at least three Indian gentleman with that name. Wow, what a co-ink-i-dink!

6

It’s a scam. Call The Treasury dept TIGTA guys.

http://www.treas.gov/tigta/careers.html
It’s against the law to pretend to be an IRS agent.

Oh, and there is no such program.

If they were smart, they’d claim they’d have a lost refund for you. *That * does happen.

7

I highly doubt that. Why would it be against the law in Bangalore to impersonate an IRS agent?

8

Because it is a federal offense that crosses national borders? Kind of like trying to smuggle Cocaine from a country in which it isn’t legal into one that is legal. If you never actually touch the Cocaine being smuggled, doesn’t mean you aren’t breaking any laws either.

9

This sounds like a call I got last week for a $10,000 government grant. Also a guy with a thick Indian accent, but a very US name, Michael something or other. The guy needed get a $59 processing fee which of course could only be facilitated by a transfer from my bank. No worries he assured me, the FBI continually monitors their calls to make sure there is no fraud :rolleyes:

Not three days later, another guy Paul Something again with a heavy Indian accented voice (I’m almost positive it was the same guy) called to inform me that I had won a three-day vacation to any of three destinations (Vegas, Ny and Miami) plus a $1000 internet shopping free. Isn’t that great! All I had to do was pay a very nominal $4.95 shipping and handling fee. Don’t worry our calls are monitored by the FCC. Now for you bank details, what bank do you use? :rolleyes:

I wonder how many people are falling for these scams.

10

Boy, I sure do miss out on all the fun! Maybe I should have my phone numbers taken off the Do Not Call lists!
:smiley:

11

I wonder if anyone ever falls for this crap?

I also wonder if they do fall for this, should I feel sorry for them?

12

I don’t think they care, though. All my phone numbers are on the DNC list, and they called me anyway. If the FCC ever catches them, they can say it’s the other Roger Williams. :slight_smile:

Hopefully, they just have an auto-dialer, and they don’t have any other private information (I’m paranoid ever since my lender “lost” a tape containing my mortgage info. They found it sitting around in the shipping facility, but who knows if someone went through it already?)

I believe they’ve already thought of this.

13

To hijack my own thread: I did a google search for “Indian Roger Williams” and the first thing that came up was this:

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6234

Seems like Roger Williams was someone who tried to understand Indian customs and language. Except, of course, the term “Indian” here means “Native American”. I wonder if these gentlemen calling around got confused when picking out their American names. :smiley:

14

I think that’s the wrong place to go–TIGTA is an oversight agency that audits the IRS. I do not think they are a law enforcement agency unless wrongdoing is found in the IRS.

IRS Criminal Investigations would be a better bet.

15

We got two of those calls yesterday! The first one tried to tell my husband that we were getting $4,500 (my husband actually woke me up to ask me what my checking account number was, leading me to say, “Good Lord, honey, get some sleep, you’re slipping!”). The second call - a female - upped it to $6,000.

I just wonder where they got our phone number; we’re supposed to be on the Do Not Call list.

16

If they’re willing to committ a federal offense (fraud), I don’t think the violating the DNC will bother them in the least.

17

TIGTA investigates IRS agents, sure. But they also investigate those who fraudulently pretend to be IRS agents. The Fraud aspect would not be handled by TIGTA. you are correct. Just the false ID crime.

18

Well, they aren’t in the US, so they have nothing to fear from the feds. Your analogy isn’t that great. I think the anology would be more like: If a guy was trying to ship cocaine from his country (where it’s legal) to another (where it isn’t), he has nothing to fear. It’s legal (well, not illegal) for him to da that.

19

Your analogy isn’t that great–the legality in the other country isn’t the issue. It’s more like those Nigerian scam emails. It’s not necessarily legal in Nigeria, but it would take a lot of cooperation between the US and the other government to nail them and it probably just isn’t a high enough priority (yet) to expend that much resources.

20

I don’t know if it is or it isn’t, but I’ll bet that fraud is illegal. It might even be illegal even if perpetrated against someone who is in another country. I doubt I can find anything about Indian law but I might be able to find out if the US outlaws the same sort of thing.