Has the tax man been calling? If so, it might be a hoax says City Council member Helen Rosenthal, who sent out the following alert on Thursday:
Dear Neighbors,
A telephone scam has been reported targeting residents on the Upper West Side, especially senior citizens.
The scammer calls, falsely identifying herself as an agent with the Treasury Department or the IRS, and falsely claims to have information on legal action the government is taking against the resident. The caller often leaves a message and asks the recipient to call back.
Do not call these numbers back. Residents who called back were charged hefty fees. Do not give any personal or financial information out to strangers on the telephone.
The following phone numbers have been reported to our office; it is possible other phone numbers are in use as well.
(213) 985-1928
(760) 284-3280
(202) 864-1122
If any legal action were actually being brought against you, you would be notified by certified mail, not over the telephone.
My office alerted the Attorney General of the issue, and I’ll let you know if there are any developments.
File photo of annoyed guy on the phone by cloneofsnake.
I don’t answer when unfamiliar numbers ring. I jot down the phone number on my call ID, and then google it.
If the number is a scam, the site 800notes.com will come up on the search. It will have postings from others who relate their experiences with the call. I find this very helpful.
I do the same thing. Especially since, aside from a few close family members (whose names and numbers are programmed in my phone) there aren’t very many people I know who would call rather than text/email. Unknown number almost always equals a telemarketer, scam, or donation solicitation from the college alumni association.
Might wanna add this one to the list (781) 202-4211
total scam.
they call every day, sometimes 4 times a day.
This has gotten very confusing. The census calls me over and over for their surveys. They ask for a lot of information. I believe they are legit, but who knows these days! How to balance our civic responsibilities with protecting ourselves?
At first, to thine own self be true.
In these days, and with this scam in the air now, all bets are off.
Never give information about yourself or your family members to people over the telephone. PERIOD! Whether they appear to know your name or now (and these days you can simply input a telephone number into Google and get a person’s name, etc) Best way to keep your privacy and all your money intact is to keep your mouth shut to strangers on the telephone. Don’t take “surveys” don’t cooperate with Census takers (real or bogus – you can’t tell the difference), don’t tell people who you’re voting for, don’t give out an address or a credit card number or a social security number or ANY PRIVATE INFORMATION.
You don’t have to be rude — simply say, “No thank you. I’m not participating” and hang up.
This seems strange. Yes, the official census is conducted every 10 years, by “enumerators” in the field. In NYC, that means ringing doorbells, mostly from lobbies, hoping to get up to apartments.
I know a little about this since I worked twice for the census, both in the official count in the Spring of 2010 and later in the Fall for an unannounced follow up to audit results of the Spring count. Both times, our teams worked in the field on the UWS.
Those follow-up interviews were, IMO, a total waste of time and taxpayers’ $. The Census Bureau is always making busy work for itself in between the 10-year counts. So it’s quite possible these calls you’re getting are legit.
But understand this, at least: You DO NOT have to cooperate with the Census Bureau. There is no penalty for refusing to talk. You can simply say: “Never call me again!” and hang up.
You also might simply ask for the person’s name, his/her Census Bureau ID #, and where this person is working from.
Then contact the NY regional office (it moves around a bit) as listed on this page:
https://www.census.gov/regions/new_york/www/contact_us/
and ask them to verify the employee and if there is a current survey underway.
Good luck!
I agreed with the other commenter…..sounds shady. Census is normally done at certain times and in my experience either in person or by mail. However, there is one census phone project that is legit. Here’s the info that you can check with. I just don’t see them calling more than once.
I’m worried, EG. Did you google the number that they are calling from? If so, did it produce a legitimate government site and not one ending with, for instance, “.com”.
See Comment 7 to protect yourself more fully.
For anyone victimized, I would be happy to help defray your losses.
I will soon be receiving a windfall of +++ dollars, travelling next week to Nigeria to pick it up…..
I was on a Federal jury where we heard such a case. (Specifically, money that needed to be cleaned for a fee.) It was so sad to hear witness testimony of those who got hurt — mostly really poor people — people so good that they thought everybody else was as good as they were.
I have read numerous times that the IRS will NEVER initiate contact via telephone. Always through regular mail.
That stock photo is weird . Looks like a bad 70’s movie scene
It does. And the message sent by Rosenthal’s people has really nice graphics.
It includes graphics? Maybe you received a different notice then. There were no graphics on the one we received. WSR
I used the wrong term. I mean that whole setup, blocking and picture were very nice.
Here is a government website for those who want to protect themselves against scam calls.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0076-phone-scams
Also beware these people have programs that allow them to change numbers, so one call they are calling from Florida, the next Texas etc. Most of the phony numbers that show up on caller id are hijacked and are not even the real number they are calling from. Lots of info about this on google.
2 times they have spoofed my own #….I wasn’t home it was on caller id
Also, be aware of the scammers who call you pretending to be microsoft, telling you to get to your computer because you have a virus of some sort. Those guys make me laugh
That Microsoft scam was relentless about 8 or 9 months ago. We had several landlines in our home for a home business and they called all of them about every 3 or 4 days. They all started with “Hell m’am/sir, I’m with Microsoft and we need to talk with your about your operating system…” Or something similar. The calls mostly were from a call center in India. We were wise to it immediately (mostly because we have MACs!) but it was also on the local news that this scam was making the rounds. Every time they called we said sternly “I don’t think so. Nope. Not interested. BYE” and half the time the caller would begin to get irate as we were hanging up. Don’t get sucked in. If you need desperately to chat with a stranger – go take a bus ride or walk to the park.
Agreed — the guy on the other end was sooo agitated and had a really thick accent….I told him that it wasn’t my problem and he should just blame time warner cable.
You’ll pay a steep price if you fall for that one. After they have messed with your computer, they’ll “offer” to fix it for a fee. (I’ve heard of $500.)
This happened to someone I know. However, he call Norton and, within less than an hour, they had fixed the problem.
But it’s not a nice way to sweat out an hour.
I got 2 prerecorded calls on my answering machine on Tuesday from a Judy Smith (I think) claiming She was from the Department of U.S. Treasury, and said I had to call a 213 number concerning a lawsuit against me. (Of course I did not call back.) It is very annoying to get these calls, and I think illegal.
Having ditched my land line (and transferring my 212# to my mobile) I no longer answer any call that does not have a clear ID of who they are. If it is important, they can leave a message and I will call back.
When I get random calls from numbers I do not know, I will google them and can usually determine if they are from scammers. Then it is easy, I just block that number in my phone and I am never disturbed by that number again.
The do not call registry is minimally effective. It used to be much more so, but now they just use robo-caller software and dial from outside of the US.
I find that the “Do Not Call” list works. It stops *legitimate* telemarketers who can get fined for the violation.
However, it obviously won’t protect you against scammers; they don’t care about law.
I’ve *heard* that some calls are made just to gather valid telephone numbers that can then be sold to other scammers. I *don’t know* whether this is true.
It’s safer, therefore, not to pick up the phone at all if you don’t recognize the number because, once picked up, they’ve gained an active number that they can sell.
BTW, that works the same way with e-mail addresses. If you get unsolicited e-mails from strange places or businesses you’re not familiar with don’t both with the UNSUBSCRIBE feature on the bottom of their page. They’re usually just gathering a list of active e-mail addresses for future scam or bulk mailings. Only if the place is legit like Bloomingdales or Macys or places you’re done business with. Also, remember if you are contacted in a bulk mailing by a bank — even it it happens to be your bank, don’t respond. Your bank will always address you by your full name and will give you their local number to verify (not 800 or 866) And they will give you the last 4 digits of your account FYI
You really must be careful even with “familiar” sites. Lots of phishing going on out there. Poked a hole in a legitimate looking LinkedIn policy change email, also got phished by a VERY realistic email from Verizon.
Before responding to any curious emails requesting you to click on a link to update info from familiar sites, be wary …You can contact them for further information before clicking.
When I get one of those e-cards for a birthday or something, I don’t respond to the sender by clicking on “reply”. I write a separate message and type a different “Subject” name to thank the sender.
And, if I forward an interesting e-mail, I copy and paste it unto a new e-mail and alter the subject line.
I blame this on De Blasio and the end of “stop and frisk.”
you must mean “stop and phish”
I got one of those calls about six weeks ago and it really freaked me out. I responded to the voicemail, but didn’t leave any information and figured out soon after that it was a scam. The number was a 213 number. I will add it later if I can find it.
The number used was 213 435 5757.
I had one recently from a man with a strong South Asian accent with a lot of background noise (the boiler room, I guess) advising me he was calling from the Federal Investigations Bureau and he filing a complaint against me in the Federal Court of Claims. I just started laughing hysterically. He seemed agitated that I did not take him seriously. After three years of law school though it would have been impossible to keep a straight face on that one.
What are the Republicans going to do about this?
Those are the Republicans! Carly set up her Super-Pac to attack.
I received the faux-IRS call on my voicemail last week. I’m 59 years old. Does that qualify me as an eligible target for scam-the-elderly cons?
It does.
I got a call from the (760) 284-3280 number listed above yesterday. I didn’t answer since I didn’t recognize the number. Most of the calls I receive are from solicitors with whom I don’t wish to speak. When they call more than a few times I add them to the reject list on my cellphone and they are automatically rejected if they phone again. Any call to my home multi-rings on my cellphone so the cellphone block catches the calls.
it looks like Shelly Duvall in “The Shining”.
Received such a call from a 213 number and a “Ricky” some weeks ago. After my few choice words for him they never called back. Made my day!
I received calls “from the IRS” that I owed back taxes and that my wages were going to be garnished unless I called “them” back to rectify the situation immediately. This happened last year. The messages sounded legit, but I’m very suspicious by nature and I know I handle my tax returns with a professional and are done on time, so I reported it to the IRS and the FTC by filing official reports that included the multiple numbers the caller left on my voice mail. Report it here: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0076-phone-scams
When I got home on Friday I had a message saying that it was the US treasury department, that they were calling because I committed some kind of tax fraud,and if I didn’t call back I ran the risk of being arrested. I didn’t believe it for a minute.
Interesting. I got a call from the IRS saying they we initiating a lawsuit. It was an 805 area code. I ignored it just because the IRS are a******s not because I suspected a scam
Look closely: the Asian lady in the photo is holding a RAZR cell phone and not a corded land line phone.
Beware. I got called 9/17 from the California # 760 and was left a voicemail to call them back and for about 10 seconds it sounded legit. Right until there’s a bump in the tape and it diverts to something like “to avoid jail time”. I reported it to FTC and please do so too if you get called. These scammers need to be caught and prosecuted.
The number left was 213 261-4275.