Victim Location 94704
Total money lost $3,000
Type of a scam Tax Collection
Received 3 calls from an actual phone number that’s listed as a phone number for the Berkeley Police Department and the officer said her name was Lisa. I picked up on the third call, and I wouldn’t have picked up if the number wasn’t displayed on my phone as an actual phone number from the Berkeley Police Department. They said they had a warrant for my arrest unless I comply with them because they said I forgot to fill out some paperwork for education in my taxes, and that I had to go to the IRS office along with a fine in the form of a prepaid bond with a federal agency, which would be returned to me once my paperwork was sorted out. They stated that if I chose to comply, in the meantime they would actively work to get my "charges" reduced, and help me set up my appointment with the IRS office. Emotionally manipulated and threatened me and stated that since my case was not a public case, I could not tell anyone including my parents or else my parents would also get in trouble as well, and they threatened me constantly with this. Told me not to call or text anyone until after I complied and got my charges reduced, and after this was all resolved, the officers would call and explain the situation to my parents. Connected me to a (fake) FBI representative who gave me a run-down of my options and what the implications of the arrest warrant were. "Police officer" Lisa then gave me my "case number" letter by letter, number by number, as well as a few other "important" numbers and information like the name of the attorney general and told me to write these things down and also the name and address of the IRS office to go to with my form of payment, as well as the names of the people handling my case at the IRS. For my "fine", the form had to be a prepaid bond with a federal agency, and I was instructed to purchase $3,000 in gift cards from 3 different store options, two of which were gibberish supermarkets in the Midwest/other states and one of which was Apple the tech company, whom apparently has a partnership with the government for situations like these as their gift cards are an accepted form of payment with the IRS. Took my debit card number and credit card number in order to "connect" my call to my bank customer service because they told me I had to increase my limit on my cards in order to make the purchases, as well as the last 4 digits of my father’s social security number and my driver’s license number. They told me to proceed carefully as they threatened that I would be red-listed by the government due to my "tax crime" unless I operated undercover while purchasing the bonds. After purchasing, they asked me to send over the numbers on the back to verify that the money was loaded into the cards correctly. In reality, they just drained the gift cards with the information. The whole ordeal for the day ended around 5 pm in which they said the IRS office was now closed because I took too long in securing the payment. Finally, said that they were able to get my charges reduced, and they would call me the next day in the morning with further instructions on how to handle my case at the IRS office, but of course never actually called me back. In total they spent around 4 hours with me on the phone, and even simulated police department noises/commotion in the background of the call at times. After I realized I was manipulated and scammed, I went to the police department to verify and file a case, to which they said there was nothing they could do about it. The police officer that handled my case was surprised that the scammers used a Berkeley Police Department phone number.