Amusingly, I once got a call from the actual IRS -- and the caller asked for my SSN before continuing! I declined to provide it, asked for his name, looked up the IRS number in the phone book (this is how long ago it was), and eventually got through to him. He did not seem at all upset or surprised by my wanting to do so.
Turns out there was a similarly-named company not that far away from us, whose CFO had the same last name as me. As soon as I called and gave my SSN he said, wait, do you work for "Cygnus" and I said yes, but we figured what had gone wrong out and he said, "sorry, never mind". Total time on the call: less than 60 seconds. Total time to get through to him? About 30 minutes.
Still, the commissioner's advice was essentially correct: I was surprised to get the call because it wasn't for me. Was the IRS, but not a call for me. Good thing I called back though!
Turns out there was a similarly-named company not that far away from us, whose CFO had the same last name as me. As soon as I called and gave my SSN he said, wait, do you work for "Cygnus" and I said yes, but we figured what had gone wrong out and he said, "sorry, never mind". Total time on the call: less than 60 seconds. Total time to get through to him? About 30 minutes.
Still, the commissioner's advice was essentially correct: I was surprised to get the call because it wasn't for me. Was the IRS, but not a call for me. Good thing I called back though!