Description

Since approximately July 8, 2025, I have received daily harassing phone calls from entities claiming to represent the “Tax Assistance Office” or the “IRS Fresh Start Program.” Many of these calls roll to voicemail, while others are live calls using various agent names and rotating caller IDs, often spoofed. A representative identifying herself as “Ellie Hall” left a voicemail message stating: “Hey, this is Ellie Hall following up from the tax assistance office. We marked your file as matched to Fresh Start eligibility under the installment agreement program with solutions based on your specific tax. This could be negotiated payments of under $200 monthly. Spots for hardship relief are selling quickly, let’s talk to your resolution eligibility today at 833-507-2178. Hope to speak with you today…” The messages use urgency tactics and deceptive language to imply federal affiliation, which I believe is fraudulent. I’ve documented the originating numbers, call timestamps, and agent aliases for each contact attempt. As a professional actor of 40 years, I decided to engage one of the callers and recorded the call in its entirety. The caller identified herself as: Amy Hughes Title: “Representative with the Tax Relief Program Dept.” Direct Number: 315-547-3654 Email: [email protected] Physical Address (as given): Tax Relief Group 20855 Ventura Blvd., Ste. 10A Woodland Hills, CA 91364 Call originated from: 315-537-1324 (Harrisville, NY) I performed domain verification on taxreliefsolutiongroup.com using the macOS Terminal whois command. The domain appears suspicious and was registered relatively recently, using anonymized domain privacy and masking its registration details. Below is the WHOIS information summary for the domain: Registrar: Tucows Domains Inc. Registrar Abuse Contact: [email protected] | +1-416-535-0123 Creation Date: August 12, 2024 Expiration: August 12, 2025 Name Servers: cris.ns.cloudflare.com, maisie.ns.cloudflare.com Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited Registrant Location: Charlestown, St. Kitts and Nevis (REDACTED FOR PRIVACY) The URL is not verifiable through IANA's WHOIS server directly and triggers an error. This redirection to verisign-grs.com, with further reference to tucows.com, suggests an attempt to obscure ownership. The physical address cited by the caller may be fraudulent or misappropriated. The volume, persistence, and spoofing behavior of these calls strongly suggest a coordinated fraudulent scheme, likely operating from outside California while targeting residents using deceptive claims of IRS affiliation. This violates federal consumer protection laws and potentially California’s anti-robocall and deceptive trade practice statutes. I have already filed a report with TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) and am submitting this to your office for further investigation. The pattern of behavior is consistent with known IRS impersonation scams. I am willing to provide recorded audio, caller logs, and all IP/domain verification data upon request. Thank you for your attention to this matter.