Have you every strung a scammer along on purpose?

[Shefliesonherownwings]

Just been binge watching scam interceptors on the BBC and the episode I just finished showed a couple of people deliberately stringing scammers along to waste their time and stop them contacting anyone else. These were phone and online scammers. I got a lot of satisfaction out of listening to the scammers getting annoyed and knowing they were wasting their time.

I normally hang up the phone straight away if I get one of these calls and ignore messages about ‘fraudulent’ activity in on my account but I wondered if anyone had deliberately strung these scumbags along just to waste their time deliberately?

My Dad had someone ring him about his PC being slow, possibly hacked etc. Dad asked the guy to go into detail about what the fault was. The guy refused and said that it "was very technical and needed an expert to fix it". Dad replied "oh that's ok, if you tell me what the problem is my Son in law (my DP), can sort it out. He works for the police in the cyber crime department (he doesn't), so I'm sure he'll....hello? Hello?" He never got any scam calls after that.

I used to but can rarely be bothered now, so I keep it short - I do try to get them to put the phone down rather than me though.

Just had a 'BT openreach' slow connection one and they put the phone down with after simple 'oh no, everything is absolutely fine here'. That's as far as I go now - I used to try and keep them on for ages. A couple of times it was way past the point where I would've expected them to twig and I got bored so I revealed I was playing with them. Yep, not happy!

Whenever I've got the time. The kids think it's hysterical.

"Oh and my DM who is in her 70s does too, she loves it!"

Yes, my dad answers every call with the name of a government department, just to confuse potential scammers. He's properly committed

I do if they call me when I've nothing on. I normally tell them my husband has just died and I'm not very good with The Google. Sometimes I tell them at length about my son (works in computers in London) and daughter (a nurse with a young baby) which they are not at all interested about.

I also spent a fun filled 36 hours being elderly and attempting to buy Amazon vouchers for an online scanner who needed them "for her niece". I sent a screen shot of the various listings on Amazon itself, all with the bar code of XXXXXXXXXXXXX. The scammer was very unimpressed when I eventually relented and explained that I was merely preventing them from scamming an actual victim, and became quite abusive towards me

The accident ones my dh will let them go through the whole script and then say that brilliant I was high on coke and booze and smashed into a police car
Or he will say sorry Mr X Is dead or in prison 😂

DH gave one of the scammers a mouthful of abuse and hung up, but the scammer called him back and called him a piece of shit!

Sometimes. I like to break them down and I’ve succeeded a couple of times with the phone scammers. Depends if I’ve got the time.

I used to get involved in long email conversations with 419ers back in the day too. When they said a relative in Nigeria had died and I was due to inherit I’d be distraught about the death but not interested in the inheritance. Long and short of it is they got annoyed.

I used to string them along. I even handed the phone to my 11 year old who handed it back upset because he'd been called "an f-ing brat".
So I don't do that any more.

I had a lot of the "your broadband is slow" calls for a while. Multiple times a day sometimes.
For a while I'd put my answers into Google translate on my mobile and swear at them in Thai or Urdu or whatever took my fancy.
The final one I answered, I cut him off in his spiel about being from BT and asked directly "Is this so you can get remote control of my computer?"
He stopped and then said "How did you know??"
I replied - "Because I've been getting calls like this for weeks on end."
Now I don't answer my landline unless it's a number I know or a local area code.

My best work was this...

Home phone rings, so immediately know it's a dodgy call....
'Ma'am, I'm calling from Sky. Someone is using your Internet connection to download malicious items...'
'Oh no, what kind of things?'
'All kinds of Malware...'
'OK, are you sure it isn't all my porn?'
'I'm sorry Ma'am?!'
'Yeah. I have a massive porn habit, so I just want to be sure you aren't getting that confused with something dodgy, cos if it's porn, it's me'
Lady on the end of the line fluster a bit....
'By the way, I know this is a scam....'
hangs up 😂

And

'Ma'am, there is someone hacking into your internet, have you noticed anything strange?'
'Oh my god, yes, loads of porn pop ups on the PC'
'Yes, that's the hackers..'
'Hang on, let me just tell my husband....(speaking to empty room) Honey, they've said the porn pop ups is because of a hacker....what do you mean it's actually been you?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!
(goes back to man on phone) I am so sorry, it's not hackers, it's my husband, and he is now in massive trouble!!!!! (Yells into background...I can't believe you!!)
'Ma'am, you must calm down, there is up to 15 people on your line'
'15?! I'm so angry right now, he says that all 15 log ins are his...I'm going to have to go and deal with this....
😂😂

@Thenose

"Oh and my DM who is in her 70s does too, she loves it!"

Yes, my dad answers every call with the name of a government department, just to confuse potential scammers. He's properly committed

My daughter aged nearly 15 does this on her mobile with scammers but says ‘Gloucester police station - which department would you like? ‘ if anyone tries scamming after this she says ‘stay on the line caller I can’t quite hear you we are beginning a trace on the call’ surprisingly she doesn’t get hardly any calls at all 😂

I'm another one who answers car crash ones with:

Oh thank god someone doesn't think I was at fault! Will you come to court with me next week & tell the judge cos my solicitor says I'm looking at a ten stretch.

Or

Was that the one where I was off my tits on ketamine & coke or the one where I was giving my husband a blowie in the M6.

A couple of days ago. It’s the holidays and I’ve got time so when one of the Microsoft scammers rang I strung him along pretending I was typing in the stuff he suggested into my laptop. Eventually, after pretending to be incompetent and making various mistakes I said I could finally see a message on my laptop. He asked what it said and I said’I am a big fat scammer.’ He then shouted at me to get off the line at which stage I pointed out that he’d rung me so he should fuck right off. Very satisfying.

The last call I had was from Microsoft(!), who explained there was a problem with my router. I answered each of his questions with an increasing sense of hysteria, as if I was getting more and more worried about the situation. I got quite into it and over egged it a bit and started shouting’Oh no, oh no, oh no’ when he realised I wasn’t taken in by him and he shouted ‘Go die, go die, go die’ back to me. Which was nice….

I love winding them up. Depending on mood:

Answers phone, whispers 'it's done, I buried them, don't contact me again'. Hang up.

Carphone warehouse 'I don't have a mobile phone'. Cue silence as they realise they called me on my mobile.

Accident? Why yes, fell over in the playground yesterday. Age? Oh I'm 9.

Car accident? Yes! I flattened 6 nuns on a zebra crossing. In my defence they camouflaged well.

I don’t, the abuse you get at the end can be quite scary.

I almost fell for an O2 scam last weekend, so although I wasn’t rude, I ended what the scammer might have seen as a very promising call.

He rang my phone repeatedly for an hour after it. I know they are unlikely to have my address but I found the repeated ringing intrusive and intimidating.

Those who call claiming you gave have committed fraud are far far more threatening so I prefer not to give them my time as although I know they are scammers it puts me in a bad mood.

Only the online ones on dating apps 🤣

@NamelessGhoul

I love winding them up. Depending on mood:

Answers phone, whispers 'it's done, I buried them, don't contact me again'. Hang up.

Carphone warehouse 'I don't have a mobile phone'. Cue silence as they realise they called me on my mobile.

Accident? Why yes, fell over in the playground yesterday. Age? Oh I'm 9.

Car accident? Yes! I flattened 6 nuns on a zebra crossing. In my defence they camouflaged well.

That's hilarious especially the first one 🤣

@maducks

Yes, numerous times. One was trying to scam my Nan and I played a long for ages then gave them a mouthful and ended the call.

They called me back and gave me a mouthful back 😂😂

I did the same for an elderly neighbour. He rang me back and told me I was a fucking whore!

I've done a few computer ones where I pretend that I was waiting for them to call and give them long detailed information about the error message I'm getting.

When I start getting bored I start asking when their engineer is arriving because you see I told them at the beginning that they were sending someone from Microsoft on call out.
Then I "hear" the doorbell and greet the person enthusiastically and suggest they then speak to their colleague who will be able to help them more than me... for some reason they've never held on long enough to speak to them.

Dh's firm (IT firm) used to enjoy doing that on speakerphone. They've strung someone along for a couple of hours while they "shut down and restart all the computers one by one" (because the scammer couldn't say which one it is)
"I've switched number 3 off, now is it that one that's causing an issue"
"You don't know... let's try number 4...."

I have provoked fury from the "Microsoft help line" by telling him he had contacted the EXECUTIVE Microsoft helpline, his call was being recorded for billing purposes and what exactly was the issue with his computer? He kept trying to get back to the script, I kept asking for random letters from his password and asking him what he could see on his screen. Kept it up for about 20 minutes until he told me to fuck off and slammed the phone down. Result.

Good morning ma'am, our records show you've recently been involved in an accident.
"Oh it was terrible, he just tripped over the cat and landed on the carving knife I was holding. At least, that's what I TOLD them......."

Yes, all the time. Last time I managed to get round the fact they wanted my card details to renew my Amazon Prime by saying I'd had my card scammed and was waiting for a new one but I could pay by bank transfer if they gave me the bank details. Sadly I had to say 'but I need the name on the account for verification, is it Amazon Prime?' and got hung up on I presume they didn't want to give account name.

@AnybodyAnywhere

If you’ve never read some of the marvellous scam baits on 419Eaters then I highly recommend it 😊. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the scammers…until I remember what they do 😡

I was going to recomend 419 eaters too - a guy I worked with years ago was quite active on there. He managed to convice a scammer he was going to fly to Amsterdamn to hand over some money in cash - someone else on there even knocked him up a fake boarding pass! They had the guys sending him proof pictures of stupid things like shoes on his head to prove he was who he said he was and then arranged a meeting at a corner with a webcam on so they could watch the guy getting more annoyed while he was standing waiting!

I've always been scared to go that far into it - I'm worried they'd find a way to get back at me,by spamming my phone and e-mail constantly or something!

The last call of that type came to my mobile about 20 years ago. I put on a sinister voice and said very firmly 'Never call this number again' and then hung up. Still got the same number but had no nonsense calls since then. Touch wood. Weird.