Robo calls

[christie1111]

OMG! I am home cleaning and I have gotten 4 robo calls saying my lawyer needs to call them back ASAP. The last one was impersonating the IRS. I actually had enough and called the number back and they answered "Internal Revenue Service"! WOW! That has to violate a federal law at least! All 4 different numbers. Mechanical woman's voice. Anyone know how to shut these down? Where to report them to especially the last one?

[Vandal]

[Ritterskoop]

I read somewhere that the IRS has a way to report these but I haven't followed up on how to do that (our calls here are because we are both registered independent in a swing state -so far they're not oo bad but we plan to stop answering soon).

[bazodee]

Best advice is to ignore. Some of these scams provide you with a call back number for which you will incur a charge just for calling.
When the faux-IRS calls me, I do my best 90-year old impression and tell them I'll put the money in an envelope on the front porch.

[jarnon]

I've got a few of these robo calls from the Treasury Dept., IRS, "Internal Revenue Services," etc. You can report them at https://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_ ... scam.shtml.

Never call them back. Despite how stupid they sound, they could have software to hack your phone.

[SpacemanSpiff]

The other problem with these fake IRS calls (and I've received quite a few all of a sudden, from numbers all over the country) is that they are seldom landlines. Just get another disposable mobile phone with a new number and go from there.

There was one with a local area code; I was tempted to call them back and say, "I'll be happy to come by your office to make payment" just to see what would happen. But I avoided that temptation.

Short of call blocking, I don't know of any way around it. Mrs. Spiff and I never answer phone numbers we don't recognize -- it'n it's important, they'll leave a message, as a former boss of my would say.

[Bob Juch]

OMG! I am home cleaning and I have gotten 4 robo calls saying my lawyer needs to call them back ASAP. The last one was impersonating the IRS. I actually had enough and called the number back and they answered "Internal Revenue Service"! WOW! That has to violate a federal law at least! All 4 different numbers. Mechanical woman's voice. Anyone know how to shut these down? Where to report them to especially the last one?

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#&panel1-1

[jaybee]

There's not much you can do. Blocking doesn't work as they change numbers constantly. They will even spoof other numbers to get by your caller ID. I've gotten calls to our land line that show our land line number on the caller ID. It's gotten so bad on our land line that we rarely answer unless we recognize the number - and our land line is our business phone. Without exaggeration, easily 90% of our land line calls are junk robo calls. Either that or Bridget from credit card services has the hots for me.

Cell phone is a lot better but still gets it's share of robo calls but definitely less. I get a couple of robo's on my cell number each week as opposed to the dozens each day on the land line.

If we do pick up the phone and recognize the beginnings of a robo call, we just hang up. We've tried setting the phone down and just letting it run it's course until they hang up in the hopes that it might note our number as not in use, but that doesn't work.

So if anyone out there is calling me with a legitimate claim to help me with my interest rates, or loan me money, or arrest me for income tax issues you should know that you are totally screwed - 'cause I'm not talking to you.