The IRS NEVER, NEVER calls. They contact you by US mail. Do not respond. This is my public service announcement for the day!

Scam scam scam scam scam!

The calls I've gotten are recording, no real live person on the other end. His name was "Franklin Benjamin". HAHA! I saw where some were arrested in an IRS scam, don't know if it's this or something completely different. It's amazing that people fall for this stuff all the time.

Those responsible for making the fraudulent calls are just as scandalous as the IRS.

I got another one yesterday. They keep saying "this is our last attempt to reach you before we sue". Really!!!?

The call I got yesterday was a woman...a recording that kept breaking up, but something about fraud and if I didn't call back right away the number she gave, I would be arrested. Yeah right! LOL

That's a huge scam here as well. They have no problem leaving messages, saying that there's a warrant for our arrest etc etc. Officer so and so. There are signs at our stores that have Western Union saying that it's a scam and not to send them any money.

Our post office clerks are always on the lookout for scammers. If a customer is requesting to buy multiple money orders to send to a foreign country, they ask a list of questions. They have been able to stop quite a few people from sending money to people who have threatened to deport them. There really is nothing they can do for the customers who tell our clerks to "mind your own business". We actually had the daughter of one customer come in to complain that her father send something like three grand to the US and wanted to blame our staff. Our staff explained how they desperately tried to stop him, yet his care giver was standing 20 feet away and allowed him to not only go to the bank to get the cash, but to buy the money order too! It was her job, not ours, to stop him. Yet our staff really tried (it's on camera)... They have also stopped people from sending money overseas to "landlords" renting houses and apartments here. I can't tell you how often that happens. Pretty much everyone has call display. Lesson here is do what we do: we don't answer numbers we don't know. We let the voice mail take a message.

"Those responsible for making the fraudulent calls are just as scandalous as the IRS"

Brushworks, the IRS, like any governmental agency, has employees that fill the spectrum from being excellent to awful and all points in-between. Just like the cop who stops you for a traffic ticket who may seem to have too much of an attitude, so do some IRS employees. In both instances, you can thank the past citizens these public servants have had to deal with. Most try to do their best.

The IRS is the police force for tax laws made by Congress. If you don't like what's there, don't blame the messengers.

People in this area are being scammed by guys who show up 'from the power company'. They're here to 'turn off your gas/electricity/whatever' unless you pay them cash for the outstanding balance of (biggest number they think they can get away with). It works! Of course, they are just a couple of mugs with hard hats and some kind of utility belts.

We are now getting phone calls late at night and early in the morning. A couple of weeks ago it was the "windows" phone call at 11:00 at night and this morning at 7:30 it was Visa collection services - really?

Now for us, if we get a phone call at those times those are emergency phone call times and with my mom being very sick I panic and we do answer the phone.

I yelled at the guy this morning and he wound up hanging up on me - oh well.

We just moved and have a new number. Since we have been using our cell phones all the time, no one has the new house number. No one. Even the phone company texted me on my cell. So in the last two weeks that we've been here, the phone rings 4 or 5 times a day. Haven't answered it once. Will use it for outgoing calls only.

I finally got a call from "Rachel" about my credit card!! I only have my cell phone now so I just hung up and then blocked her number. I also got a call about refinancing my student loans. I have never had a student loan, so that was definitely out of the question. It's been many years that I have even been a student. LOL

I haven't had the IRS call, but I've heard from 'The Donald' a few times lately ;0

We've both been a little casual about not answering calls when we don't recognize the caller ID. I rec'd a letter from my bank card company saying they had tried to call (like a week earlier) and would I contact them about possible fraudulent charges on my card. I did, and there were...

All easily resolved with an account cancellation and new card issued, but I'd have known a week sooner if I had just answered the phone. These last couple of weeks I'm answering, having to speak, say No, to requests for donations, and I've hung up on the Windows virus urgent-fix man twice.

I had the opposite problem recently. I received a letter from the IRS a few weeks back, and had to call them. I then had the joy of waiting on hold for about 70 minutes before I could talk to a representative. At least my issue should be able to be straightened out via the mail and perhaps without owing any additional money.

Maybe if the scamsters want to seem more authentic, they should call, and then put you on hold for at least 20 minutes. :-)

Bob, when we try to call the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) we don't even have the option of being on hold! We get a recording saying that all of the agents are busy, to please call again, Goodbye. Click. So we re-dial over and over. How's that for frustrating?

I had the same experience as bob_cville...got a letter from IRS and had to call them. No other option. I receive SS survivor's benefits and the letter said I may qualify for more $ on my own retirement account, so I may want to apply for retirement benefits. It's possible to look at potential benefits online, EXCEPT if you are currently receiving any SS benefits. It sounded good to me, until the 75 min wait on hold- and the person I talked to couldn't help me, she was only able to make an appt for me to apply. That was in early May, the first available appt is July 5!! And if I have to cancel or move it, I have to call and wait on hold for another hour or more; it's crazy making.

Then 2 weeks later, I received a letter saying that my application for SSI was denied. I never applied for SSI, it was not mentioned in my conversation with the agent....(I know I wouldn't qualify, so would never have applied for it). What a total waste of govt resources to send me that letter.

What I can't believe are the people (including some who post here) who endorse telescammers! (And who shall remain nameless.) Their rationalization? They're just trying to feed their poor kids... Incredible.

Scammers are people who aim harm other people, and there's no defending them. They are blood suckers. Leaches on the butt of humanity.

That said, I've receive the IRS scam calls and they are laughable. The local police are going to come and get me? Oooh, I'm so scared!!!

I get them all the time from people in india saying I got a payday loan. They say I committed check fraud and am goiing to jail. I just say,"okay then,anything else?" They just hang up when I don't cry and ask if I can just pay them to make it go away. Those people should be tracked down and thrown in some squalid Indian prison cell to rot.

I've thought about crying hysterically-like howling, crying, and mentioning something about selling my mother's wedding ring. Or, maybe mention that I'd lose my house and would have to live in my car.

I wonder what they'd do.

Sign up for Nomorobo. It works like a charm. I never get these calls. I have no relationship with the company to promote them. It's free. It works. Do it.

nomorobo

Shoot, my carrier doesn't support nomorobo. Any others?

Nomorobo doesn't work for me either.

well I got rid of the jamacian fellows for a while..pretended to cry when they asked for fil, and said he passed...but they're back...so just don't bother....now he's really gone, sigh, and they're back...but my new phone announces who's calling so I don't waste my time to bother answering....

Cynic, I don't think anyone supports scammers. I think you are lumping scammers and telemarketers together and they are very different. I am one that feels that telemarketers should be treated decently. A simple "no thanks, please remove me from your list" before hanging up should suffice. We have had threads on here where people blow air horns and whistles at the telemarketers, which I think is cruel and possibly dangerous to their hearing. People doing telemarketing often don't have many other options. It's not a fun job many would choose.

However, people trying to scam money from others is entirely different than those trying to sell things. One is annoying and the other is a crime.