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?

Tbh there’s a vast difference between scammers and cold callers. Cold callers often do what they do because they need the work. However awful a job it is. When I had never had a job and nobody would give me a job because I’d never had one I did cold calling for a double glazing company. I detested every minute of it but it was a means to an end, and so I am not rude to cold callers.

Scammers though are the lowest of the low.

Cold callers usually get a 'no thanks, I'm not interested'. Scammers get strung along because a) they know what they're doing and b) deserve it

@iklboo

Cold callers usually get a 'no thanks, I'm not interested'. Scammers get strung along because a) they know what they're doing and b) deserve it

And c) because the longer you keep them on the phone, the fewer vulnerable people they can call.

When they say “hello is that Mrs Winter/house owner” or whatever,
I answer “I’m very sorry. Mrs Winter/house owner is too drunk to come to the telephone”

@Gilesgoesformiles
It's not wasting your life and boasting about it though. The longer I keep a scammer on the phone stringing him along the less time they have scamming an elderly or vulnerable person.
I'll usually only carry it on if I'm driving and the phone has connected to the car or I'm busy in the kitchen, there's no harm in keeping a scammer busy whilst I get my washing up done.
Sometimes I'll just end the call and block but theyr more likely to call back if they think they can get something out of you

Exactly chisanunian & Sh05

No, make it as short as possible.

I have, quite a few times. I love the ones where they try to take control of your computer. I faff about saying the computer is upstairs and can they hold while I go and get it. Then I come back a while later and when they start asking what I can see on it, after keying in whatever code they've asked me to key in, I start describing invented photos of invented grandchildren and then invented screensavers and then I get very chatty and ask them lots of questions about their lives and eventually when they lose patience and try to get me back on track I tell them I don't have a computer and just wanted a lovely chat with a lovely young man and that we actually live off grid in a yurt and I've spoken to no one but my goats in three years etc. They end up begging me to stop talking so they can hang up.

Yes. A Nigerian who wanted to pay me millions for putting a cheque in my bank account.
I pretended that I was a vicar and how grateful my church would be.
By the time I finished with emails flying back and forth a few weeks later, the pope and Jesus himself were involved 😂