Wife almost fell for it a few years ago, but fortunately I figured out who and what she was talking about and intervened.

The IRS never, ever calls a person about a tax matter. They either send a letter telling one to call them - or a squad of enforcement officers to take possession of one's stuff.

Dude, the Department of Federal Enforcement Services don't play.

Seriously, what I think is going on is this:

Last year, at 45 years old, I had a stroke. No unhealthy lifestyle, just a birth defect in my heart. Same stroke that former NFL player Tedy Bruschi had.

My info was also part of the .gov data breach. Scammers have some of my info. I've taken some steps about that, as an aside.

Anyway. Stoke is associated with old folks. And so are panic scams like this. So there you go- somebody mined the hospital records too. Bingo, let's scam that dumb old dummy. Sad part is, people actually fall for it. It's tragic. I have an idea on how to deal with these scammers, and it has to do with a nail, a bungee cord, some quite sensitive areas of the male anatomy, and a bridge.

JUST got a new call. From the IRS.

I am facing a judge, a jury, a magistrate, AND a Grand Jury unless I call the US Treasury to resolve this. It's worse than I thought: the IRS tattled on me to the US Treasury. I expect the Texas Rangers, Guardian Angles, and the Toledo Mudhens here any moment.

Also, this is my final warning.

I bet.

I must be missing out on lots of threats since I don't answer the phone if it isn't a number/person that I know. Three phone calls today went unanswered.

My folks are elderly so I don't take the chance. Gotten calls from hospitals etc

Same thing with my cell phone, Calls from numbers I don`t know never get answered. They get put on block list right after the call is done.

I am actually lucky in that regard. My cell area code is the common local area code while my landline has the common cell area code. This means that 99% of junk calls go to my cell, since they think it is a landline, which are easily blocked. I just hope there is not a limit on how many numbers I can block.

Hey, no worries, I can hook you up with a guy I know in Nigeria who has ties to an African Prince that has $40,000,000 dollars that you can get for a small fee.
Let me know if you want his email

My mom fell for a scam just yesterday (retired FAA Novell administrator, slipping in her elder years). What caught her off guard was the timing, she'd just bought a new Apple iPad and recently called Apple Support to help her get up and running. Then yesterday she got a call from "Apple Support" and gave then remote access to her laptop. She didn't suspect a scam until they wanted her to purchase $500.00 in Google Play (whatever the hell that is) and that she'd be reimbursed. Oops.

She hung up and called me over. No harm done, for two reasons...

1. She mainly uses her laptop like I use mine, to go online. We could toss them out the window and nothing lost.

2. I keep an up-to-date 'virgin' OS partition/drive image for all of our PCs/laptops (including hers) with any personal data backed up to external sources in triplicate. I simply restored her latest image (includes boot sector) and then her personal stuff, so minimal hassle and nothing lost.

Told her next time to just call me over first, save us both some time and hassle.

I am constantly blocking numbers because of these scams. Unfortunately my land line phone only allows 300 numbers to be blocked. Even if I block by area code that is nowhere near enough possibilities. I have reached a point I wish all phones blocked every number when you bought it and you would have to white list those you want to accept. It would stop scammers cold since they could never get through.


Wheels

A friend of mine has a landline phone that does that. It blocks everything and asks him if he wants to accept the call. If he accepts then the caller's number is cleared and will ring through in the future. He loves it.

I would love to know the brand and model since all I can find have limits to the quantity of numbers you can block.


Wheels

I will call him and find out. However, I should note that my statement was based on his general impressions. I don't promise that there is no limit or that he and I did not miscommunicate the details.

EDIT:
It is an AT&T Model CL82407
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/AT-CL82407-Expandable-Cordless-Answering/dp/B0735QBGCL/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524770186&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=GE%2BCL82407&th=1

He has a nice system cichlidfan. It block 1000 numbers vs the Panasonic system of mine that only blocks 300 numbers. It does say in the product description at AT&T that you need to have a subscription service to use it though?

• Use of smart call blocker feature requires a subscription to caller ID service.
• Use of caller ID feature requires a subscription from your telephone service provider.

Source: https://telephones.att.com/pd/3738/CL82407-4-handset-phone-system-with-smart-call-blocker


Wheels

I don't know about the details. He never mentioned it.

As far as I know Caller ID is part of the service with a land line. I don't pay extra for it, AFAIK, but my landline is through my cable provider and I suspect his is as well.

EDIT: I should add that the gentleman is probably not concerned about minor extras on his phone bill. He is in his mid 80's and is retired from both a county government job and the U.S. Army as a Command Sergeant Major (Korea and Vietnam). The cost of little things probably don't concern him. He is also very much a non-tech kind of guy, so he probably just got the service options that were suggested to him.