U.S. Takes Down Call-Center Financial Scam

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Takes Down Call-Center Financial Scam

Officials allege people impersonating IRS, immigration officials extracted more than $250 million from victims

By Miriam Jordan

[e-mail]
http://twitter.com/mirjordan

Updated Oct. 27, 2016 3:30 p.m. ET

Federal authorities said Thursday they had dismantled a massive call-center scheme perpetrated by individuals in the U.S. and India who bilked thousands of Americans out of hundreds of millions of dollars by posing as Internal Revenue Service and Department of Homeland Security officials.

An 81-page indictment names 56 people in the U.S. and India and five call centers in Ahmedabad, India, allegedly involved in the fraud. They were charged in a Texas federal district court in Houston with crimes including impersonation of a U.S. officer, identity theft, money laundering and wire fraud.

In the U.S., federal agents arrested 20 people in connection with the scam. Individuals were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey and Texas. ... Callers in India phoned individuals in the U.S. and demanded that they make payments to clear purported unpaid taxes or debt to avoid arrest. Their co-conspirators in the U.S. collected the victims’ funds, laundered them and transferred them to India, according to the indictment.

The scheme often targeted individuals who were elderly or immigrants with solid credit scores, according to investigators. The swindlers obtained lists with names and dates of birth from aggregators and marketing companies and researched the victims before preying on them. Immigrants were told that they would be deported if they didn’t pay up, investigators said. Often a federal agency’s name showed up on the recipients’ phone identification, lending legitimacy to the call.

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-charges-61-people-groups-in-alleged-irs-immigration-scheme-1477580901

[DorothyG]

1. Awesome!

There must be others out there running the same scam though. I get a lot of these calls and I don't fit into this group's target demographic.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I was just now checking your records. You need to make the check out to m-a-h-a-t-m-.... NT

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Does this mean I DON'T have to appear before the judge magistrate ...

... as they guy on the phone claimed?

[olddad56]

4. they threatened to sue me, but I wasn't worried...

because I had already given all of my money to a Nigerian prince.

[angrychair]

5. I loved getting that call

Told the guy I was a "sovereign citizen" and I don't owe the government shit. He stammered for a second and then I hit him with a bunch on nonsense "Latin"-sounding terms (e pluribus expecting ptrunum) hung up.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. !!!!!

[Ligyron]

6. Did these calls come in on a land line?

One of the many reasons I don't have one. Peace and quiet ever since we ditched that annoyance.

Cell phones work just fine nowadays.

[DorothyG]

8. I only have a cell phone and I get all kinds of garbage calls

[Ligyron]

9. dayum! I must be inadvertently doing something right with mine.

I never get unsolicited calls yet have had the same # for years.

[LisaM]

20. No, these only come on my cell phone.

I haven't gotten any on our land line.

[DemInND]

7. I have internet phone from the cable dudes

With lots of features for the phone. One option I have is I can enter a list of phone numbers that I will accept calls from. Put all family and friends and work in. If a number tries to call that's not on the list, they get a busy signal. Or, I can have it say a recording that says "this number does not accept unsolicited calls. If you are a telemarketer please hang up now otherwise press "1" to continue." then my phone rings and shows caller ID. Never have had a telemarketer since. I got my privacy back!

[moonscape]

13. That's awesome! I have Comcast and all I get is ability to block 25 numbers. n/t

[suffragette]

10. Scum of the earth

Glad to see this.

K&R

[SDJay]

12. I Got One Of These Recently

I told him I was an investigator with the IRS and that I was tracing the call's location with software. The guy started swearing at me in a thick accent and hung up. That was the end of that.

I'm glad they're nailing these fuckers. Too many people are being ripped off.

[0rganism]

15. oh please tell me they got "Rachel at Card Services" too

that shit got old real quick, and at the height of the card services frenzy i was getting at least 1 per day

[AllyCat]

16. Still get those. And the "IRS" called me just this week

We laugh and hang up.

[OrwellwasRight]

17. And do the people who were bilked get to sue

those who handed their information over to fraudsters? I bet not.

[Wolf Frankula]

18. When are they going to get the fake Microsoft Tech Support?

Tho' I haven't heard from them in months. Maybe they got tired of getting Buddy's Glass (We Do Windows), Papa Slurpy's Pizza for Dogs, and a high pitched voice going "Impl pimpl?"

Wolf

[ailsagirl]

19. Great job!!

Those people called me a number of times. Grrrrr

Is there any kind of restitution?

[cannabis_flower]

21. I see they were charged in Federal Court in Texas

I'm in Texas, I wonder if my sending them a recording of a call and a phone number helped. I have an app that records all my calls. Sent it to myself in email and then Emailed it to the address on the IRS website. I'll gladly came down and testify. I didn't give the scammers any money, but I did give the IRS a recording.

[EllieBC]

22. Hey we get those up here too!!!

Because yeah I'm sure the CRA wants iTunes cards from me.

[nitpicker]

23. Link to the DoJ PR

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dozens-individuals-indicted-multimillion-dollar-indian-call-center-scam-targeting-us-victims