Same exact thing happened to a guy on Facebook a few days ago, that I only know through the wheeling community.
Quoted from his Facebook post, long but good read. I would have been furious.
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Just had an attempted scam occur.
My father received a phone call from a woman supposedly from the US Department of the Treasury. They told him that they were looking for me, and that if I did not call them back today, the local police department would arrest me tomorrow on federal charges. They would not tell dad what it was about, but told him to have me call KEITH NELSON at (949) 467-1241.
So my dad, fearing that his son may have a federal charge against him, called me and told me about it. I was out to lunch with a colleague of mine, and we started to dig into this a bit. "This has to be a scam." After some investigation, we found that a 949 area code is for Newport Beach, and we confirmed that Newport Beach does not have a Department of the Treasury office. So we suspected "scam" right away.
I told my father I would wait until I got back to the office, before I called them. But he couldn't stand not knowing what was going on, so he did some recon and called them too. They were hateful and would not speak with him. So once he told me that, I went ahead and called them.
"Hello, department of the… uh… United States Treasury. How can I help you?" It sounded a bit like an Indian accent, but not exactly.
"I'm supposed to talk to Keith Nelson."
"I am officer Keith Nelson." – Keith Nelson is from India/Pakistan? KEITH. NELSON. … no.
"Um. Okay. Well, I am supposed to call you. You called my dad, saying I needed to call, but wouldn't tell him why."
"Can I get your information?"
"My information?"
"What number did we call to contact you?"
"256, 489, ****"
"Is this Matthew Wright?"
"Yup."
"I am calling you today [NOTE, I CALLED HIM] because there are legal pbaldkjfha;hwkthad" he started getting very sloppy with his accent, and I couldn't understand one word he said.
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I couldn't understand you."
He sighs.
"I am calling you today, because there are legal proceedings which have already started, and there is a warrant for your arrest. This call is to get your legal information, so we can get the legal process started, and to issue the warrant."
"On what charge?" I cut him off, and was stern, but I did not raise my voice at all, and did not express any emotion at this point.
"You did not receive asd;lfkas;ahba from the IRS!?"
"Absolutely not." I was admittedly short with him at this point, but I did not raise my voice or act angry. Just more of a skeptical tone.
"WHY ARE YOU HAVING SUCH AN ATTITUDE WITH ME SIR?!?! WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS TONE OF VOICE WITH ME?! I AM THE GOVERNMENT!!"
"Because you are claiming to be from the Department of the Treasury, and you called me from a number that is in Newport Beach." Except, I only got to the "number" part before…
"GOOD DAY SIR!!!!!!" and he hung up.
He tried to bully me into giving him my legal information. No way, Jose… or I mean "Keith."
A police report will be filed. Waiting for an officer to call me from the Sheriff's department. The most infuriating thing was that my 74 year old father thought that there was some chance I could be put in jail on federal charges, and the helpless feeling that I could hear in his voice was something I haven't heard from him in years. That in itself is enough for me to pursue this to whatever end I need to, for these people to be punished for what they are doing to people.
