Last week I got a half dozen phone calls that were recorded messages in which a guy with an unidentifiable and near incomprehensible accent says he is called from the Canada Revenue Agency (like the IRS) and it is urgent that I call the following number immediately. Of course I did no such thing and after two days it stopped. But what was the scam?
They probably say they are offering a settlement on “back taxes”, and want you to pay them. A friend bad that happen recently. He received a call from someone claiming to be the IRS, and told him be miscalculated his taxes from 2009 to 2015. They offered him a settlement of 17,000 dollars to avoid jail time. They could set him up on a payment plan if he made a one time payment of 3500 today, followed by monthly payments of 700.
That’s happening in the US, too. They try to scare you into sending them money.
The most obvious part of the fraud is that the IRS would not call, but rather send a registered letter to notify you of any problems (they have your address).
My brother-in-law got a voice box message, about 4 months ago, claiming to be from Canada Revenue Agency too. He was supposed to call only this particular person, ASAP. It seemed pretty amateurish.
BIL eventually called the guy back and it really was the Canada Revenue Agency! BIL was able to verify that the person at the other end really had access to his file. The civil servant wanted to talk about BIL’s monthly instalments (which were already in place but needed some kind of adjustment). Apparently it’s just how they contact people nowadays.
I had one of these a few months ago, including being told that this was their last attempt to contact me before issuing a warrant for my arrest.
I’ve so far managed to evade law enforcement.
The CRA has a page about it.
Im curious, does that ever work? Is anyone ever stupid enough to pay?
Since they keep doing it, yes.
I suppose that, if I had reason to believe the IRS would be after me, it might. If I knew I cheated on my taxes or didn’t file or was already in legitimate trouble with the IRS.
What was different was that this was a recorded message and I was asked to call a phone number they gave. There was no indication what it was supposed to be about. I guess it a free-lance scam and I shouldn’t expect it to conform to any other kind.
That’s not necessarily the case; I once got a letter from the IRS because some outfit (for which I will use the pseudonym Thoroughly Incompetent Airheaded Asses - Completely Ridiculous Egregious Featherbrains) that was supposed to be sending checks to my wife (benefits from a previous job) did not send any checks, but did send reports to the IRS. I was able to get it straightened out, but the nastygram was the first I heard of the problem.
As for the scam, I’d see it as an opportunity to put my long-belch skills to good use.
True enough, but I would expect a letter if it was a legitimate grievance (like you got) and not a phone message threatening me with imminent arrest if I don’t call immediately and make a payment plan.
On the other hand, if I was already getting letters from the IRS due to some legitimate issue, I might possibly think the phone call was legitimate as well. Probably not, but I can believe that someone else would. In that case, I’d think the scam wasn’t really expecting to pick up most people (any it does is just a bonus) but rather you shotgun it out enough and hope to pick up people already in some sort of tax trouble who are more vulnerable to your scam.