What kind of phone scam could this be?

I’ve received that call, or variants of it, many times—not as a message but as a bot call when I answer the phone. I don’t know what the scam is, but I know it’s a scam, and I hang up as soon as I recognize the routine.

I don’t remember ever receiving a scam call from an 815 number, but I did from a 209 number. The caller said the IRS was going to sue me for unpaid taxes.

I Googled the 10-digit number, and learned that it was assigned to some scammers pretending to represent the IRS.

There are some toll free numbers which automatically charge you if you call them no matter how brief the call.

(Think of something along the lines of Psychic hotlines)

The charge appears on your phone bill phrased in the most nebulous way possible so that most people assume it’s part of the normal gamut of extra charges, taxes etc. which the phone company leveraged. I’m talking about landlines more so than cell phones here.

It’s usually not an amount large enough to stick out and is usually under $10.00 and not an even number (something like $6.42 or something) so it blends in with the other usual sales taxes and such.

But just multiply that small number by the thousands of people who call back and forget about it later and you’re talking real money here.

Very few people question the charge because they don’t carefully read those 6–8 page bills in detail.

This is a scam. The IRS or the US Treasury will never call you on the phone. They contact you by mail if they have an issue with you. I once went to a seminar put on by my state assemblywoman, where a rep from the district attorney’s office gave one of the presentations. He said that in these cases you should forward the call to your county district attorney’s office for investigation. Never return these calls, because as @Buttonstc says, you could wind up with extra charges on your phone bill.

Don’t call them back! You can check the number by going to 800notes.com. Enter the number in the box and you will get a list of people who have entered complaints.
Ireceived a similar call from a fake “process server”. It is a scam.
They threaten to call you at work. They eventually offer a settlement of a few hundred dollars to cancel the debt. They are slime.

IRS Urges Public to Stay Alert for Scam Phone Calls

IRS Special Edition Tax Tip 2015–18, October 21, 2015

The IRS continues to warn consumers to guard against scam phone calls from thieves intent on stealing their money or their identity. Criminals pose as the IRS to trick victims out of their money or personal information. Here are several tips to help you avoid being a victim of these scams:

Scammers make unsolicited calls. Thieves call taxpayers claiming to be IRS officials. They demand that the victim pay a bogus tax bill. They con the victim into sending cash, usually through a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. They may also leave “urgent” callback requests through phone “robo-calls,” or via phishing email.

Callers try to scare their victims. Many phone scams use threats to intimidate and bully a victim into paying. They may even threaten to arrest, deport or revoke the license of their victim if they don’t get the money.

Thanks all! I am currently at work, but I still have the number on my answering machine at home. I will follow @LuckyGuy ‘s advice and check the link to see if the number is listed.

Treasury Phone Scam

@LostInParadise Be sure to enter your incident as well. That helps the next person receiving similar calls. Also look up the caller ID and log it as well. The people who called me had a caller ID that said “PDI Process Ser” . I looked up the number and saw this list of complaints .

Some of the people entering complaints on 800notes.com are really aggressive about fighting back. A few have actually tracked down the scammers and posted information online. They occasionally list all the numbers the scammer is using.
You can see it is working when scammers complain about their personal info being displayed. Some people even give scammers and telemarketers, other scammers’ phone numbers.

There is even a list of call center numbers that you can block if your phone has the capability. For example 585–797-xxxx, Arcade NY, is a recent addition to the list. Blocked.
My phone has a 5000 number memory. I save the numbers with a one letter code I add to the caller ID. If it is a robocall, rather than just hanging up, I will tie up their line by placing my phone next to the radio while playing a talk radio show. Often it latches on to the voice and sticks around for 2 minutes. That slows them down and forces them to buy more lines. Sometime I will answer with the phone on mute. I just leave it connected and walk away.

Here is a good example of someone fighting back on 800notes_5183546210 . Look about halfway down the second page for .“Sir Be…‘s comments, 9 May 2014.” He is great. My hero!
I wish more people would fight back.

The other answers have it pretty well covered, but I also wanted to note that an 815 number is not toll free. 815 is one of the area codes for Chicago.

Thanks for the info. I just assumed that any number in the 800’s was toll free.

I recently had several calls telling me the IRS is suing me. I stewed a bit and then looked it up on the internet which showed there are many scams out there. One scam which keeps repeating is that “your windows computer is sending out bad signals”. Not a recording. I have an approx. 100db whistle which I blow into the receiver then. I don’t have a windows computer.

You should also type out the number here, in its entirety, for anybody googling it in the future.

@jca31823 http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/moore-on-finance/2015/07/17/is-the-irs-really-suing-me/30310187/ This is one of the sites that seals with this. My search was “does the IRS sue individuals”.

Your first “IRS call” or “Treasury call” can be somewhat disconcerting, but it’s to be ignored. The IRS doesn’t telephone people; it sends notices by mail and, as the gravity increases, Certified Mail. The IRS also has no authority to charge anyone with a crime; it identifies tax crimes, which get turned over to the Department of Justice for due process.

@si3tech: I meant for the OP to type the number in here (Fluther) so that it comes up in their google search if anybody googles it. The more places the number is located with information about it being a scam, the better for anybody researching.

If anyone wants to look, I got calls from NYC today, back to back, on my cell.
No message:

917–981-8211
212–666-0300

Yesterday we got the Treasury Scam call.

The phone number is 815–614-5024. I entered the number in @LuckyGuy ‘s link and found a number of people who seemed to have gotten the same call. I had thought that the person might have had a very slight accent and others have reported that the caller spoke with an accent.

It’s a scam. They’ve called me several times in over 2 years. Always different numbers and slightly different variations of the scam.
Lately I got two calls. One from someone in MI, and another for Texas. It is the same Indian guy. He says he’s from my home security service and when I ask him about the name, he doesn’t seem to know and then tries to say he is the tech service for it. I looked up both numbers and reported them. One belongs to this old couple in Michigan. They just spoof other peoples phones for their scams to get information from you. The Texas one belonged to a company in Texas that has nothing to do with security.

Follow my rule. Do no business over the phone unless you called the place and have gotten the number in a way that can be verified to be that business. Even when I donate, I go on line and look up their official site and verify their contact address and phone number, or I go to official government sites that have a listing of their 800 numbers.

Usually I will just tell them, that I know it’s a scam so to please stop wasting my time and they usually won’t call back after that. Some do. Like the Indian guy. The second time, I told him I know it is a scam and had already reported his first number and now I will report his second number. He hasn’t called back.
Some are so lazy that you will actually see the name of the business or person they actually stole it from.

Sadly some of these telemarketers calling are unaware that they are working for a scamming company and may actually believe they are legit.

All scams are just simple games of numbers. Unfortunately, there is always that someone who will take that call in all seriousness and your average scammer is well aware of that.