In this type of an attack, the callers claimed to be from the IRS. Their message was that they were giving a final notice about a payment that was due. They would issue threats of arrest if  the amounts allegedly owed by the receiver were not paid. There are some callers who did not sound native; therefore, their cons were not so successful since they triggered suspicion. There were other callers who used recorded messages, but these also sounded unoriginal and therefore they would not always work. There were others, however, who were armed to the teeth with some factual information about their targets. It is said that these callers had purchased such kind of information from hackers that had compromised government and health databases. The victims would be more than sure that it was the IRS because hardly anyone else would have such kinds of information. In the end, they would pay up huge sums of money as they had been directed by the social engineers. However, the strange thing about the way most of the callers demanded the money to be paid was through iTunes gift cards. These payments would, therefore, be untraceable. However, the victims would be too scared at this point to raise any questions.

Looking closely at this scam, the pretext used is not simple, but it is of the IRS. Using such a pretext comes with some advantages and disadvantages. On the cons, a target can verify whether it is true by calling the real IRS. Also, when things go south and the attacker is arrested, the charges for this attract more jail time. On the pros, the IRS is generally feared by many thus this pretext will have more chances of success as targets can easily be put under pressure. It is because of this pressure that thousands of victims did not question why they were being directed to make deposits through iTunes gift cards instead of debit or credit cards. A principle that some of the attackers used was researching well about a target. The successful attacks were those done when the attacker had a number of details about the target. It is not very hard to get details though. Social media sites are a sure place to begin since people are fond of putting their personal information there. Sites such as LinkedIn encourage their users to post accurate academic and employment information. Therefore, it is not hard to obtain this information.