To ask your favourite ways to waste scammers’ time

[Chouxchou]

I had a call today which was a recorded message telling me my national insurance number was going to be deleted (?) unless I paid some kind of fine or some shit. I had the option of pressing 9 to speak to an ‘agent’ but I was on my way out so just hung up. Please give me some creative ideas to waste the maximum amount of their time if they call back. I would like to think I am doing someone more vulnerable a favour by keeping these arseholes on the phone to me for as long as possible.

My phone tells me if it's suspected spam or potential fraud so I don't answer then block the caller number

@GrouchyKiwi

I'm laughing at your brother living in a cave.

That's brilliant!

A few years ago I was selling a car. A scammer told me this story about how they wanted to buy it for their son but they were not in the country so I'd need to send them money to have the car shipped to them. I agreed to send some money by Western Union and the following day gave them a fake Western Union number. They went to try to collect the cash and were very frustrated that the number seemed to be wrong. I said, oh sorry, I must have made a typo, and gave a slightly different number. Obviously that didn't work either. This went on for several days and after multiple trips to attempt to collect the money and being refused they became rather furious.

@tootiredtobother - good, I suppose. Then they'll be getting through to someone (in this case, me) who's going to marginally reduce their opportunity to scam someone else, who might be more vulnerable. My hobby is a sort of public service :)

Jo

Its fair to say that a few years ago I had a job on a chat line (aka sex line) and am therefore quite skilled at keeping people chatting.

I have various chatlines :_

Dotty lady who knows nothing about technology

Very deaf and dotty lady

Lonely lady who just wants someone to talk to

Sexy lady who does the S&M talk

If Im bored I just say "sorry Im the cleaner and my employer is away" (no disrespect to cleaners but they cannot make household decisions, buy things, etc) so scammers/salespeople dont want to talk to them.

These are all brilliant!
I used to work with a guy who used to put on his best baby voice and go down the lines of “mommy and daddy aren’t here, I made a picture with pasta, do you like pasta? I like crayons, do you like crayons?” etc for as long as possible until they gave up.

I always wanted to try and impersonate the various voices Robin Williams does when applying for the housekeeper job in Mrs Doubtfire but never find the guts

1. Works best if you can hear "call centre" type noises in the background.

"Oh, you poor thing. You're working for that company that sacks people after a couple of months and doesn't pay the wages owed. Look around - have any of your colleagues worked there for six months or longer?"

2. For use with those that use a recorded message before you get through to a call handler.

"My friend/husband/father recorded the message you just played to me and he didn't get paid either.

There's someone on YouTube called Kitviga whose grandmother was scanned out of loads of money by scammers so he makes videos of him winding the scammers up and wasting their time as he believes that the more time they spend with him the less vulnerable people they'll scam, I think you'll enjoy his channel - youtube.com/c/KitbogaShow

@CigarsofthePharoahs

I would advise caution over handing them over to a child. I did this when I had the stupid "your broadband has a problem" people. The scammer called my child a "motherfucking brat" and kept swearing until I took the phone back and told her to do one. They ended up calling me constantly for weeks. I did mess with them a lot, but it just seemed to encourage them. In the end I stopped answering my landline unless it was a local call and they've finally given up. The best one though - after enduring many calls I asked one chap "Is this so you can remote access my computer so you can scam me?" and he replied "How did you know?" Because I'm not stupid?

I think we had the same caller, they said the same when my daughter said I wasn’t in and we didn’t have a computer.

@Carrotinthesky

I keep a copy of a popular classic novel printed in French next to the phone. I read a sentence as best I can in response to their every question. Neither of us know what I'm talking about. My aim is that they hang up first. I have a high success rate.

Brilliant. This made laugh out loud

hands phone to aspie son this guy LOVES Pokémon, he wants to know about your collection!

I had it on speakerphone. Didn’t last long but it was hilarious.

I used to work in a call centre and hated my job, but it was the only work I could get. I don’t understand why you want to be nasty to the caller, they’re not running the ‘scam’ or whatever they’re calling about. What a horrible little power trip you are on, stepping on those doing a low paying job while thinking you are doing society a service.

I get calls about car accidents and I always ask 'which one, there's been so many' and then they'll give some timeframe and I'll just say 'ohhhhhh that one. Yeah that was bad, 25 cars, 5 buses, and an aeroplane full of passengers and animal cargo, all because I parked over the line of the space next to me' or some bullshit. They get bored eventually but I have a great time 😂

@Cookiecrumblepie

Boohoo for those just carrying out the scams rather than having thought them up

@beccahamlet

They are human beings who are doing What must be a really horrid job. I try to be polite and kind to them.

They're committing fraud! You think people should have sympathy with someone trying to obtain money by saying that their NI number will be deleted? By saying their computer has been used to access porn sites and they'll inform their employers?

Do you also have sympathy with "muggers", are they only doing a job?

A friend of mine used to say, ‘Can you just hang on a sec?’ - then go and get the vacuum cleaner and switch it on so that it was blasting into the phone.

The ones I get now (a lot) are all recorded messages telling me I’m going to be arrested unless I press 1 now and kindly give them all my bank details, so I don’t even have the satisfaction of being able to tell them to fuck off.

@Cookiecrumblepie

I used to work in a call centre and hated my job, but it was the only work I could get. I don’t understand why you want to be nasty to the caller, they’re not running the ‘scam’ or whatever they’re calling about. What a horrible little power trip you are on, stepping on those doing a low paying job while thinking you are doing society a service.

Are you saying you took part in scamming? You told people things like "your NI number would be deleted?"

You knowingly preyed on the vulnerable in society?

If that's what your saying, then shame on you. That's on par with going out and mugging someone!

How would you feel if a member of your family was scammed out of a few thousand?

@Cookiecrumblepie

I used to work in a call centre and hated my job, but it was the only work I could get. I don’t understand why you want to be nasty to the caller, they’re not running the ‘scam’ or whatever they’re calling about. What a horrible little power trip you are on, stepping on those doing a low paying job while thinking you are doing society a service.

I think your mixing up two different jobs, working on a cold calling call centre that is trying to sell products or capture details to sell on is very different to a call center of scammers who are using high pressure selling techniques to convince people to buy Google play cards and give them the codes/western Union transfer under false pretences.

I cluck like a chicken.

@Cookiecrumblepie

I used to work in a call centre and hated my job, but it was the only work I could get. I don’t understand why you want to be nasty to the caller, they’re not running the ‘scam’ or whatever they’re calling about. What a horrible little power trip you are on, stepping on those doing a low paying job while thinking you are doing society a service.

Years ago now,, but a dd once had a holiday job in a call centre that was legit, but making unsolicited sales calls. She lasted about 10 days - as she said, it’s not much fun being told to fuck off all day long.

For that reason I’m never rude to legit call centre staff, I just say no thanks. However I hardly get any of these any more - just the scammers, and it’s nearly always a recorded message.

Ahh I’m talking about call centres getting charity donations. I wasn’t talking about deleting NI numbers, but still why be unnecessarily cruel? I can’t imagine the people on the phone have many options if they’re dialling from a call centre in a foreign country etc.

beccahamlet
They are human beings who are doing What must be a really horrid job. I try to be polite and kind to them.
You have sympathy with people who lie, steal and trick the vulnerable? Interesting approach. All my sympathy is with the victims and I hope the scammers are jailed.

I think the problem on this thread is that people are conflating scammers (who are criminals that we would all like put in jail) and cold callers who are just doing their job - a pretty thankless one at that.

The first group deserve everything they get. The second a polite ‘no thanks, not interested’ is enough.

Are you saying you took part in scamming? You told people things like "your NI number would be deleted?"

No of course she isn’t. But many posters on here are recommending treating scammers and genuine salespeople the same way.

Cecily- no one on here have recommended treating cold callers and scammers the same way. The closest it came to that was a pp who countered a point I made earlier about a window salesperson who was giving it the hard sell and i agreed they can be guilty of ripping customers off - this is well known. Not the same thing as you're suggesting though. Most people I think would treat cold callers with a 'thanks but no thanks' attitude.

Scammers on the other hand....its funny to wind them up and think of ingenious ways of doing so. And no, they arent 'just doing their job', they're engaging in criminal activity which would probably come with heavy prosecution if they could be caught.

I mean if you only reason the threads through, we are literally talking about scammers who call regarding accidents, or Windows viruses, or compensation and insurance claims or people saying your NINo will be deleted if you dont do x.

Bullshitters of the highest order. We are literally all talking about them. Rtft.