In the past 6 months I've received two different versions of the 'warrant for your immediate arrest unless you send money now' scheme.

The first time the person said I had committed fraud on my INS renewal application and I would be arrested by days end if I didn't immediately send the money to extend the investigation period. This one did freak me out as I had been to a local INS office a few weeks earlier to renew my permanent residency card. I looked it up online and sure enough it was a scheme to get money.

The second time was the IRS scam that mtnmom mentioned above. Considering I always get a tax refund I knew this was bogus.

I find it despicable that people purposefully prey on the elderly, the disenfranchised, and the other, more vulnerable members of the communit to make a quick buck. There's a special place in %$*& for people like that.

our IT dept just had a training class on how outsiders can send fake emails (the email address would appear to come from someone within the company) and that they can call from outside but make it look like an internal call showing the name of an actual IT employee on your display.

that was pretty eye-opening. i knew the part about "don't give out your passwords/login's under any circumstances" but didn't know that they could make themselves "look" like an IT person.

I've been getting phishing e-mails from someone pretending to be Amazon.com sending me follow up e-mails about "my order". I reported it to both Amazon and Gmail, and changed my account e-mail address and password just to be safe.

An international student my DH teaches fell for the tax one, he lost all the money he had in the bank as he believed that Homeland Security was on their way to deport him if he didn't pay. He reported it to the police, but there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done as he bought a Paypal voucher and gave it to the caller over the phone. Sad thing, he used Turbotax and had just heard from another international student that students with his visa are not allowed to use Turbotax so he already thought he had done something wrong.

They're getting sophisticated. Knowing I do not respond to texts asking me for my emails; or any other texts, I do keyword searches of companies and reverse phone number searches. I almost forgot to reverse-search the last time I was suspicious of a job scam.

The getting of an interview out of left field, seemed too good to be true.

One can never be too careful.

If identity theft insurance is a market and a thing, for those who are not part of the Lloyd's of London set, you better believe it is no longer practiced solely at the Club Fed echelons of crime ... !

We had a message on our answering machine from the "IRS" stating that we owed money, that we should call back, and that if we didn't pay, they would be coming after our house. Threats right off the bat??? I just laughed and deleted the message. If we did owe any money to the IRS, they would definitely send a letter. It really does pi$$ me off, though, that they can get away with these "scare scams!" :mad:

A friend of my MIL"s got one of these calls. Sadly, she believed it! Thank goodness she contacted my MIL who told her it was a scam and stopped her from sending any money to who knows where or who. It is so scary what unscrupulous people are out there.