"IRS" Robo-call Scam - Wanna mess with them?

Howdy, DP friends.

I'm sure you've heard about the scam where you get called by "the IRS", and they tell you that you that there's a warrant for your arrest and all your assets are being frozen and tracked, etc., but "if you just pay us some money right now, it all goes away".

Well, these pricks have been calling me for weeks now, and the funny part? I'm a Canadian citizen.

It's always a robo-caller, with a call back number. Today I called it, trolled the guy who picked up the phone hard, and got hung up on...surprise surprise.

So...if anyone feels like ripping on these asshats, here's your chance. The call number, verified working a couple minutes ago, is:

513-449-6767

Have fun - I plan to call a few more times today. Perhaps spamming the **** out of them will make it more difficult for them to steal from people who actually get tricked by this. (I know of someone who has, they can be very convincing).

Let's use our trolling skills for good!!

Go to your local boating accessories store and buy one of those air horns. When they answer the phone.....well, I guess I don't need to explain it.

Lutherf said:

Go to your local boating accessories store and buy one of those air horns. When they answer the phone.....well, I guess I don't need to explain it.

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LOL...ya, no doubt. Or some creepy sound bite from a horror movie ... "I know what you did, and I'm coming for you...", some kind of creepy stuff like that...hehe...

No, what you need to do is waste as much time of theirs as humanly possible. Make them think it's working. Act like an idiot the entire time. Ask them how to get this fixed, in excruciating detail. Every single step, you need hand-holding. Can I pay with a check? No? Cash deposit to a numbered account? Ok. Can I use my ATM card to pay it directly because that's how I get cash. No? Just cash then. I have some Canadian dollars because I just got back from Canada, can I use those? No. Ok, I'll go to the bank. Can I go to any kind of bank or does it have to be a main branch of my bank. Do you know where the closest one is?

Then tell them you're driving right now, try and keep them on the phone. Maybe go to your car and actually drive somewhere, running an errand. Pretend to go into the bank, etc. Reverify the account numbers like eight times, mixing up digits wrong several times.

Their entire business model revolves on quickly screening out anyone they aren't going to fool, to maximize their time to work on people who just might be gullible enough. Be a false positive. Be the worst possible false positive.

And get the account number they're trying to get you to deposit money into. Give it to a bank or the police, or both. It wont lead them to the scammer, but it will at least get flagged and cost the dickheads some more time.

513-449-6767

Have fun - I plan to call a few more times today. Perhaps spamming the **** out of them will make it more difficult for them to steal from people who actually get tricked by this. (I know of someone who has, they can be very convincing).

That number has since been disconnected.

OlNate said:

Howdy, DP friends.

I'm sure you've heard about the scam where you get called by "the IRS", and they tell you that you that there's a warrant for your arrest and all your assets are being frozen and tracked, etc., but "if you just pay us some money right now, it all goes away".

Well, these pricks have been calling me for weeks now, and the funny part? I'm a Canadian citizen.

It's always a robo-caller, with a call back number. Today I called it, trolled the guy who picked up the phone hard, and got hung up on...surprise surprise.

So...if anyone feels like ripping on these asshats, here's your chance. The call number, verified working a couple minutes ago, is:

513-449-6767

Have fun - I plan to call a few more times today. Perhaps spamming the **** out of them will make it more difficult for them to steal from people who actually get tricked by this. (I know of someone who has, they can be very convincing).

Let's use our trolling skills for good!!

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I would agree except that they use different phone numbers and caller IDs, changing these almost daily. I just keep alerting people to this scam and others like them, and that includes informing my elected representatives who so far have not acknowledged my complaints but who should be urging the FBI, etc. to be tracking these terrible people down.

AlbqOwl said:

I would agree except that they use different phone numbers and caller IDs, changing these almost daily. I just keep alerting people to this scam and others like them, and that includes informing my elected representatives who so far have not acknowledged my complaints but who should be urging the FBI, etc. to be tracking these terrible people down.

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Ya, they are brutal... My brother in law got taken for $2500 on the income tax scam - they actually said they were the CRA, rather than the IRS, so it was a bit more believable, and they kept him on the phone for over 2 hours as they directed him to go from place to place, keeping him totally stressed out the entire time so his common sense didn't have time to kick in...plus, he has his own business, in which he sometimes accepts cash, so...hehe...even more believable. My dad also got taken, but with the "Windows service desk scam"...luckily the bank was vigilant, as they had him for almost $100k. They got in his computer, mimicked his email style, and was getting the bank to transfer out large sums - the first $21k actually was released, but they were able to stop the transaction before it was finalized (I guess it takes a couple days), but they had already put another request in for $80k.

Not sure the FBI can do much, as I believe most of these scams originate offshore...would love to see some organization amongst targets to fight back themselves by posting these call back numbers the day they get them, and a ton of people waiting for maybe a twitter notification spam the crap out of them. That done a few times might be more effective than anything local law enforcement can do.

We don't answer our phones unless we recognize the number. But, I noticed that these assholes leave a message. I'm like, "Yeah, the IRS is leaving me a voice mail. That's believable."

OlNate said:

Ya, they are brutal... My brother in law got taken for $2500 on the income tax scam - they actually said they were the CRA, rather than the IRS, so it was a bit more believable, and they kept him on the phone for over 2 hours as they directed him to go from place to place, keeping him totally stressed out the entire time so his common sense didn't have time to kick in...plus, he has his own business, in which he sometimes accepts cash, so...hehe...even more believable. My dad also got taken, but with the "Windows service desk scam"...luckily the bank was vigilant, as they had him for almost $100k. They got in his computer, mimicked his email style, and was getting the bank to transfer out large sums - the first $21k actually was released, but they were able to stop the transaction before it was finalized (I guess it takes a couple days), but they had already put another request in for $80k.

Not sure the FBI can do much, as I believe most of these scams originate offshore...would love to see some organization amongst targets to fight back themselves by posting these call back numbers the day they get them, and a ton of people waiting for maybe a twitter notification spam the crap out of them. That done a few times might be more effective than anything local law enforcement can do.

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You're probably right. As long as it is people in other countries messing with us, there isn't a lot our government or law enforcement can do. We just need better technology with ability to block all unwanted calls and the government could be compiling phone numbers for us to know what numbers to block in advance. But even that wouldn't help much probably because they change their caller ID and phone numbers very often--probably every day or maybe several times a day.

I love to mess with them, I usually have them screaming expletives at me in under 2 minutes...its performance art.

beefheart said:

I love to mess with them, I usually have them screaming expletives at me in under 2 minutes...its performance art.

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wow, good on you, as soon as they figure out I know they're scamming I just get the *click*... I'd love for those jackasses to start screaming expletives at me...hehehe

As soon as a human comes on line with one of these calls, I just say, "This call is being recorded" They hang up every time.

OlNate said:

LOL...ya, no doubt. Or some creepy sound bite from a horror movie ... "I know what you did, and I'm coming for you...", some kind of creepy stuff like that...hehe...

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That's funny you mentioned that I get those calls a lot. I used to hang right up on it but I decided to have a little fun.

At first I just spoke gibberish. I had my family rolling on the floor with laughter. That was funny about four or five times and they'd all pick up the other line just to hear me mess with them.

Then I decided to start quoting movies video games and such it's quite funny how long will try and talk to you. Then we started saying random words that didn't make sense.

When my partner picked up the phone he decided to be really clever and see how far he can push this person before they hung up. He asked him where to get weed if he knew any hookers. I even asked the lady on the other end of one call if she knew any good places to get rid of a body. Shortly after another phone call this one on my cell. They were trying to sell me a car warranty or something and I told her I wasn't interested but I was interested to know where I could buy a clown to keep as a pet. There was a pause and she asked me if I knew what a clown was. I told her yes did I have plenty of space room and I'll feed it lots of confetti. So now it's kind of a game me and my partner play where we wait for the phone to ring and it's almost a competition who gets to it first.

Watch this....a programmer got revenge...built a script that called the scammers 28 times a second and messed with them.

[video]http://digg.com/video/programmer-revenge-irs-scam[/video]

beefheart said:

Watch this....a programmer got revenge...built a script that called the scammers 28 times a second and messed with them.

[video]http://digg.com/video/programmer-revenge-irs-scam[/video]

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That was awesome. Spent some more time after that watching other videoes that trolled scammers. This one was pretty funny. This is the scam that has a popup in your browser that says "Your computer has been infected. Call this number... blah blah blah urgent."