In XadaraCast Episode 3, Prince Watercress and I discussed phone scammers, namely, IRS scammers. At a point in the podcast, I made comment about how they behave, and wondered how it was people were stupid enough to fall for them. Without context, though, this almost could seem like I’m insulting people, and I wanted to address that before someone decides to make such a claim.
This video is one of many on YouTube that show the typical IRS scam. It’s quite a long one, and this scammer is hyper long winded about it, but it shows exactly what I brought up in the podcast, including:
- Fake American names.
- Demanding you stay on the line – hanging up is not an option on this “federally recorded line”, and if you hang up you will be prosecuted.
- Heavy accents, including strange phrasings that are nothing like anyone in America would use.
- “Tax payment cards” which are actually just regular gift cards.
- Crazy amounts owed for random “tax errors”
- The best part, at 24 minutes in, when they finally tell him where to go, it’s a place called “Ralphs”… A grocery store in his area! It’s classified as a “federally approved store” but in reality all they want are gift cards, in this case, the “IRS” wants him to buy iTunes gift cards!
- They want them to “be confident” and lie about the reason they are purchasing these cards!
This one is more conveluted than the norm, but they are all basically the same, just like this: go somewhere, don’t hang up or we will arrest you, buy a gift card and give us the numbers!
This call, from YouTuber Each & Everything, shows the same general technique, this time with Best Buy cards!