Ways that you mess with scammers

Whatever they ask tell them you'll have to look up the information and will be right back.

Put the phone down and leave it alone for 15 minutes !!!

Hand the phone to a 5 year old.

Hand it to a two-year old and tell them Grandpa or Grand ma wants to talk to them.

Back in the days before Caller ID (or before I was willing to pay extra for Caller ID, or even TouchTone dialing), I also set the phone down while they were talking and walked away from such callers. Sometimes it'd be minutes before I heard the phone company's loud "hang up" alert.

My cell phone screens the calls so they don't get through. Occasionally a scammer call comes through on the home line.
When it does I ask them to, "Please hold while I get my husband Jim Browning on the line. He'll be very interested in talking to you!". :wink:

Please google Jim Browning, or go to YouTube. He does great work!
I'll link to one of my favorite videos of his.

Scamming the over 50s

~Angela

We have been receiving an unusually high number of these calls lately. Last week, my wife finally had enough. When a warranty scammer called and asked for her husband, she whipped up some fake tears and told the guy that her husband had been killed recently! She added a few convincing sobs before hanging up.

The guy actually called back and asked my wife is SHE wanted to purchase an extended warranty on her husband's truck! Keeping up the scenario, my wife wailed "He was killed when he wrecked the truck!

It could be coincidence but since then, we have been receiving far fewer of these warranty scam calls.

I've got variations, but one theme goes something like this: "I know you are not working for an honest business, as this number is on the federal do not call list, and an honest business would not have connected you to me. I hope you stop working for a bunch of crooks and get an honest job soon.

Most of them hang up early on, but I've actually had a few try to argue with me!

In addition to Jim Browning, Pierogi (aka Scammer Payback) on youtube has some good videos on youtube. does a good job of triggering the scammers.

Mark

when i know it a scamer i usally reply with (where did you bury the body the police are here and they say they found his body) or does your mother know what you do for a living LOL

I don't know if they are scammers, or not, but I get about two contacts a week from people with offers to buy my home. The contacts are about equally divided between phone calls and text messages. Mostly I hang up on the phone calls without answering but on occasion before I hang up I reply with, "you've got way too much free time on your hands".

I simply delete the text messages without comment. The one thing I've noticed is that all of the calls and text messages are from females, based on their names and/or sound of voice. I don't ever remember receiving a similar call or text from a male contact.

I figure the callers are looking to take financial advantage of an octogenarian they hope might suffer from diminished cognitive functions. If so, I suppose that would put them in a class with scammers.

i enjoy messing with phone scammers. If I'm bored, I'll just chit chat with the person for a bit. If I don't have time, I ask them to hold on. I've had people on hold for more than 30 minutes before they hang up.

I've been answering with:

Thank you for calling. I've been sitting here waiting for your call..

All I ever get is... CLICK

Apparently they didn't really want to call me ?

"Smith's Mortuary, how may I help you?"

Things seldom go any farther.

- Tom -

Tom Mabe made a comedy career from answering telemarketer's calls. Here is one example where he needs the carpet cleaner at his house right away to clean up all the blood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohQCAFNrU60

These calls never make it here. The house phone system requires any non-whitelisted number to press a digit before the phones ring. Robo callers fail this every time.

Also, I suspect for those who are answering, that just validates the number, opening the door for future calls.

I let them talk for a bit, then interrupt them to tell them to please keep on talking. We are recording this conversation using voice-print analysis for law enforcement and immigration purposes.

They usually swear and hang up.

I'm retired and have nothing to do, except on Wednesdays, the highlight of my week. Wednesday is Garbage Day! That is when I have to get the garbage and recycling out by 8:00 A.M. and bring the containers back later. Never-the-less I still have nowhere near enough time to talk to those verbal thugs.

I don't have a landline. I've got a cell-phone with two numbers, one the native number in the SIM and the other a Google Voice number. I'd like to understand why the phones native number gets 100% of the spam calls and my Google Voice number gets none.

BTW I almost never answer the phone if the caller isn't in my contacts list. The only exception I make is when expecting a call and don't know the number to expect.

My favorite Tom Mabe prank call is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOvXxnSEQKY
Mark

zx1100e1, what phone system lets you do that?

We have a voip set up, google voice for outbound. For inbound calls get routed to callcentric which has call treatments. The call treatments has an IVR one can set up for this function.

https://www.callcentric.com

Messing with these phone scammers can be amusing but unfortunately, most are robo calls with a recorded message. you have to press a number, or a series of numbers to get a live person. That usually takes more time than I'm willing to waste.

I just got a call from AT&T to cut my account by 50% just call back on the listed phone number. AT&T said it was a scam.

had a bunch of them in it. you could hear their name rotate through a list when they made their calls. one day, they were just...gone. about two weeks later, local tv station was doing a report on them and was let into their old place. boxes and boxes of personal information on who they were scamming were left behind.

wife lived with her extended family when we were dating, her cousin enjoyed talking to telemarketers as if he were screening them for dating. It would almost always lead to him getting hung up upon. Nobody else cared because they didn't want the calls anyway.

My problem now is I use my personal cell for work--we get a stipend. I am on call 24/7 every 4th week. Now, I cannot ignore calls that I don't recognize, when on call.

they all are, and without exception, the fake auto warranty scam nowadays. That's it.

Yet many of them display number that looks local to mine...how does that work?

It's called "spoofing". The scammers use the exchange they target to get other numbers in that exchange. They then program their called ID signature to display prominent numbers from that exchange.

I often get robo calls that display as a local hospital or business. My neighbor got one recently that indicated it was from himself!

Both cell phones were ringing constantly on father's day. So far, the have not gotten to where i am with calls: if you are not in my phonebook, you can leave a voicemail.

I also have received a scam call from my own number.
Mark

I can't believe the government cannot do more to stop these calls. it is a shame that so many people get scammed.

I may borrow your "48 Desot" strategy.