to bu towards phone scam callers and wind them up ?

[mrsfuzzy]

i don't think so but you may disagree. this evening i had some foreign sounding guy call up about my 'recent car accident', he wanted details to confirm he had the right person, and advised that i'd be in line for compensation, realising it was a scam, i did not give him any details but let him run with it, and asked how much it would be etc, he was rattling around looking for answers and trying to ask me things about my bank account etc, after about 10 minutes i got bored and said 'oh, by the way, i haven't driven for the past year, and this call has been recorded for the police..' strange how quick he put the phone down. since i started winding them it's surprising how the number of calls have dropped, tps does not seem to work for calls outside the u.k.

Them .."Hello is that mrs unclaimed?"

Me: "hi can I ask whos calling?"

them "Its ..some made up name or scam "

Me : If you'll just hold I'll put you through
oh sorry hang on - we have a mrs Unclaimed in the telephone fraud office and one in the criminal investigation unit - which one did you want ?"

sound of dead telephone line.....every time

Some of these are pure evil genius.

Since the economic downturn, I've noticed a massive increase in the number of door-to-door sales people and charity fundraisers knocking on our front door from dinner time to after 9pm at night. It can't be easy and I wouldn't wish it as a job but I've found that if I have a few minutes to listen to their sales banter, I reply with "I don't sign up to anything at the doorstep". I thank them for bringing their product/charity to my attention and if I have time I'll look into it in the next few days.

I've been polite, listened to them and then they are on their way to the next house.

I remember back in the day we have Vaunage phoning us from american (!) alot of the time. But they were phoning us here in Jersey at 9 at night.

I was also heavily pregnant and pissed off.

After i hung up on one guy because it was the 5th time he had called me that day, he phoned again so i told him to fuck off.

Which meant he came back calling me a fucking bitch, why wouldn't i just sign up and make his life fucking easier etc.

So i pulled the company phone number off the website, phoned them back (had visions of the kitkat/malteser advert with the phone on a pedestool in the middle of the room just ringing on its own) and told them very nicely that if they call me again, especially 'Nick' (name changed) then i would be suing them for harrassment.

Never heard from them again.

Most cold callers are pointless here.....as they can't ship it over anyway!

MaidOfStars Wed 11-Mar-15 12:21:58

Chuggers, I haven't come up with a smart answer yet so I still avoid eye contact and run opposite side of street

"I'm pissed"

This made me choke on my toast!

Some brilliant funny stuff here!

I have a friend who used to pretend to be an old house bound woman and invite them to call in on their way home from work and have a nice cup of tea with her.

I had someone try to sell me double glazing at 09.00am on New Years Day.

This is so funny! Making me wish we'd get cold calls again, but they don't phone us any more. The last one who called got a bit of a shock as I pretended to be a sex chatline. Made a few dirty remarks and then demanded a credit card number if he wanted to stay on the line.

A chap from a well known charity knocked on the door recently. The first thing he said was -
Oh! Did I wake you up? You look tired!
Tosser.
Didn't give any money, just shut the door on him.

Caller : Can I speak to Clobbered etc
Me : What is the password?
Caller : Er..
Me : I can only talk to you if you give me the password. This is a secure line. How did you get this number?
Caller : Er…

On one memorable occasion, I kept this going for several minutes - the person on the other attend attempted various made-up passwords and eventually passed me to a supervisor. Nowadays I can't be bothered. They usually get a one or two word answer.

My favourite response to chuggers is to say, in my best cut glass accent, "I'm sorry, I don't speak English." They normal do stepping away from the crazy lady movements after that.

I love the ms ones as we went to apple years ago so I get them to talk me through where the start button is etc and then insist that it isn't there and then ask how worried I should be about that (too much time on hands). Haven't worked out a plan with the injury ones yet.

I was once told by a "computer virus" caller that someone would be coming in an hour to break into the house and seize my PC ... can't imagine what I did to upset him

Since they're all on targets, wasting their time is about the only thing which really affects them; obviously it wouldn't be fair when someone's just doing an honest job, but the real scammers are surely fair play ...

We have both Amnesty International and Trocaire chuggers on a very frequent basis on my route to car park from office.

Amnesty: Do you have a moment please to help people in the developing world?
Me: No, what I really need is someone to help me getting an Amnesty from AI - they keep pestering me.
Amnesty: (usually) aw now there's no need to be rude

Trocaire: Do you have a moment to help support a child?
Me: I am in a rush to help support my own child by collecting her from crèche
Trocaire: That's not exactly what I meant (as I fly past).

I am normally very pushed for time, but the sight of their yellow and blue jackets or green tabards actually make my insides crunch up as I am heading towards that street. (Amnesty are worst in bright yellow and fake cheeriness. I know theres a blue jacket one too, and trocaire are the green tabard).

And then they turn up at home an hour later as I try to empty schoolbags, supervise homework and cook dinner.......

Love these!!

A friend of mine had me in creases the other day when she answered to a scammer whilst I was there. Conversation went like this;

Caller: If you just give me your bank details I can get that done. Give me the long number on the top of your card
Friend: Ok, the number is 1 1 1 1 1 1, 2
[pause]
Friend: Oh god, I'm so sorry did I say 2, I meant 1. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4. Do you want me sort code? That's 1 1 1 1 1 1

He hung up shortly afterwards

Kind of regretting signing up to tps now and am sat here willing my phone to ring so I can try out some of these genius ideas.

Love the suggestion up thread- I don't speak English. BRILLIANT

I have a tactic for chuggers. When they ask if you care about X, just shrug and say, no, not particularly.

For ppi i tend to say im the chief exec of various banks and that i love ppi!

For chuggers i normally say i hate animals/small children/birds etc. I find it harder with the disability/terminal illness ones (im not evil lol)

My mum once got a call from "her internet provider" and passed the phone to me. Queue 20 mins of them trying to guess my provider and name while i feigned a memory lapse

I trained my DS to start running away from me at the sight of chuggers in our local shopping centre. That way I could jog past them going 'Sorry, sorry... got to catch him'.

It backfired slightly when one chugger helpfully caught him for me.

I had a man cold caller, asking if i was interested in double glazing new doors etc , stated no all done , he then asked about a conservatory! I stated that I have always wanted a conservatory, he got very excited and was asking what type did I like , what style etc , he was on the phone for at least 40 mins, he then asked when they could visited to measure up and discuss , i arranged a date time etc , then he asked for my address, i stated flat 20 floor 3 , and the lift is not currently working so dont bring anything heavy , he hung up ?

My son always states he is driving ,when they ring the land line ?? and can they ring back later

Ooh these are good. I've had loads of car accident ones recently but as I can truthfully say I don't have a car they hang up pretty quickly.

I had tons of the microsoft ones a while back. I use a Mac, not a PC so I was saying, 'But I don't HAVE a start icon. Oh NO! Is that the virus? Has it eaten my start icon? WHAT SHALL I DOOOOOO?' The cold caller was getting really concerned. In the end I fessed up and said, 'I have a Mac. Is that why?' They hung up.

Another time I was REALLY annoyed at them scamming money off people. I asked the caller where they were (India) and if this was their full time job. They said they were a student and did it in their spare time. I said, 'You are scamming innocent people in the UK. You do NOT work for a genuine company. Ask your supervisor... go on. Ask him whether your company is stealing money from people'. He was adamant that he didn't know what I was talking about and that he was genuinely trying to help. It did make me wonder whether some of them have a clue about what they're doing.

These days I just put the phone down on the microsoft ones.

We live part time in Fr. but we still get the callers we say "Oh qui et vous?"" and very slowly in our worst Fr. and very slowly "Desole…. je… ne… parle ….pas … francais…. tres….. bien".

They usually hang up immediately or before we' ve finished, and one said 'Ooooh la la' and hung up.
Only 2 have ever tried to speak in English.

I love this thread btw. some brilliant ideas on here. DH said that another idea is to say

"Oh my dear I'm soooo pleased you called what are you wearing?….."

I had someone ring about "an accident".
Her: "...blah blah blah an accident someone in your household has had."
Me: "OH MY GOD who is it? Are they ok? What happened? Is anyone hurt?"
Her: "No... no, it's an accident-"
Me: "Yes, an accident, what hospital are they at? Oh my god I hope it's not serious..."
Her: "No, no, it's all right, this is an old accident."
Me: "An... old accident? You mean nobody is hurt?"
Her: "No, this was a long time ago..."
Me: "You scared me, I thought someone was hurt, I thought someone was dead, how dare you do that to me, I can't believe you'd do that."

She apologised. A lot.

DH's method of dealing wife cold callers is to pretend that he has rung them, and he thinks he's speaking to a takeaway establishment...he tries to order chicken wings with his mighty meaty and they hang up!