Department of Legal Affairs Kevin Mason Phone call stating they were taking legal/criminal action against us for discrepancies on our 2008 Federal Taxes because we had not responded to multiple (unreceived) notice letters. Clovis California

Got a call from the Department of Legal Affairs regarding unpaid 2008 taxes.  When I questioned the legitimacy of the call the man (with an accent so thick I had trouble understanding him) refered me to his "supervisor" at 559-797-8075.  I called the # and spoke to Kevin Mason of the Department of Legal Affairs for the IRS - who said we owe $2273 in taxes, interest and penalties for 3 counts of something to do with overstating deductions or understating income on our 2008 tax filing.  

 

He said we had been sent two notices (CP503) and we had not responded, so they were going to issue a warrant and we could face criminal penalties up to 6 mos in jail.  He gave me vague legaleez descriptions of the 3 charges, but would give no explaination of exactly what it was we were accused of doing and he said that he would not agrue about whether we received the notices.  The the only way we could get the full details was to provide the contact informatin for our lawyer - which I eventually did and then called my lawyer.

 

Our lawyer suggested we contact the IRS and ask if there was any outstanding uppaid balance on our records for 2008 taxes.  Our lawyer was very suspicious and actually called Kevin Mason and questioned him.  My lawyer used to work for the IRS.  He discovered this to be a scam because Kevin was disclosing information in response to my lawyer's questions that were illegal for Kevin to disclose.

 

The IRS was very helpful and could find nothing on our records for 2008.  She suggested that this is probably a scam, put a note on our account about the incident and gave me information on how to report it to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

 

One other odd thing and a give away ...  Kevin Mason was doing everything off of our home phone # - he didn't ask for Social Security #s, he told me what address I live at - not the other way around (as it should be) when the IRS is verifiying your ID before talking to you, etc.  When the real IRS was talking to me (when I called them) they asked to verify my phone #s and their database was wrong... the IRS had an incorrect phone # for us - it was off by one digit - which IRS says also makes this feel bogus.  She corrected their dbase.

 

This was very scarry... thank heavens I had a lawyer and I asked questions of the scammers that put them on their guard - even though they sounded very very real at the time.