I received a generic Robocall that claimed to be from the desk of a named individual with the Legal Affairs of the US Treasury Department requesting I call back regarding “tax fraud against my name”. The call never demands payment, never mentions my name, but it does provide a phone number and supposed Action No. for my “case”. The automated voice talks a little fast and warbles ever so slightly making me listen multiple times. As I understand it some “magistrate or jury” may decide against me. I am urged to call before it is too late. (Note: No actual deadline provided. Such actual things would be on a docket with a known court date, right?)
The information on the Treasury Department website doesn’t match exactly, but it sounds very close. I believe you are safe in concluding this is a scam. There is even information on the website on how to report this, if you are so inclined.
It is a scam. 100% scam. I get them from time to time. I have called them back to see how long I can keep them on the phone before they get mad and hang up. They told me the FBI was coming to get me and I told them FBI stands for famous-but-incompetent …click.
If the feds want to communicate with you about tax fraud, they’ll send registered mail. They don’t use robodialers that ask you to call some number, and they damn well know your name by the time they’re interested in you. If there is a date that you must respond by, they’ll tell you clearly.
From time to time I get calls from bill collectors. Either they misdialed or someone put down our phone number as a fake. The bill collectors go to great pains to identify who exactly they’re looking for and never, ever use a robocall.
I’m going to guess the IRS is at least as diligent as a third-rate bill collector working from a wrong number.
Yes, it’s a scam. The reason they don’t mention your name is that they don’t know your name - it is just a automated dialing machine calling all the numbers on a list.
I do the same when I’m not too busy. My record is 1 hour, 7 minutes and 48 seconds with a “Windows Tech Support” scammer. Prior to that my record had been about 52 minutes. When I hit an hour I told the person on the phone “We did it! Wow, this was really challenging but a lot of fun and I’m glad you could be a part of this.” He said “Did what?” I said “I’ve tried so many times to see if I can one of you thieves to stay on the phone with me for an hour and we’ve finally done! Man, that was really great. Did you fun?” Then the yelling and swearing started. Now the fellow who had stayed on the phone for 52 minutes had said to me “Your mother is a prostitute and you live in a box.” So after a couple of minutes of back and forth with this guy I said “Your mother is a prostitute and you live in a box.” He got VERY angry. And was kind of funny in a mean kind of way. I almost feel bad about it, but kind of not really.
Man of these scams have a front line caller who then sends you a “senior tech” or whatever. I’ve often wondered if the front line callers know they are working for a scam or not. I had one who seemed to honestly and sincerely believe he was working for Microsoft.
My all time favorite though was a credit card scammer. I was giving him nonsense responses and at one points he says “You don’t know your credit card type? You don’t know your limit and you don’t know how much you pay per month? Have I called an insane asylum.” Well I bust out laughing and said “Oh my god, that was funny. As you’ve probably guessed I’m just trying to waste your time but that was really funny.” So he starts laughing, I’m laughing and we wished each other a good afternoon.