To answer one of those ”Hi Mum, this is my new phone number” texts?

[PuzzledObserver]

I didn’t actually do it - I blocked the number. I know for fact it is not from my child on the grounds that I don’t have any.

But it crossed my mind to reply with “OMG! Hope you’re OK! Is that Johnboy, or Tracey?”

And then mess with them.

My other thought was to reply with “Which of my children are you?” As they would then have to supply a name. Which would probably indicate to them that they’d been rumbled. Much more fun the first way.

Anyone done this?

I admit this isn’t really an AIBU, so I’ve removed the poll. But this struck me as the kind of forum where people might enjoy kicking this idea around.

I was once preyed on by a romance scammer, which I played along with for a bit because I was bored.

In the end, I did a reverse image search of the man he took the photograph from. And messaged him with the guys real name and information. The scammer took a real offense to this and told me it was wrong for 'A poor church mouse' like me to waste his time! LOL

I listened to a quite disturbing podcast, it seems lots of these scammers are virtual prisoners in massive “scam factories” in countries like Myanmar. They get scammed themselves into going for a job in Thailand then get spirited over the border. They get physically punished if they don’t meet their quotas.

I've done it and strung them along for a while. I don't have any children so did the "Which of my 4 children are you?" thing.

I certainly didn't get any further such scam texts, so can't say that answering necessarily gets your details handed on.

I suspect a lot of them are now bots anyway.

It is tempting isn't it, but as others have said, it then let's them know the number is active.
You can forward texts to Action Fraud, the number is 7726, then block the text sender.
I think the banks should give us all a fake bank card, if we know the request is fake we could pretend to make a payment using the fake card, the bank and police would be alerted straight away and catch them.

I replied to one once and played along with it for a few back and forth exchanges. Got to the bit where they asked me to send them £2K to pay some "invoices" for them to which I agreed and then casually said "oh by the way Dad and I watched a really good movie last night - called the Beekeeper, have you watched it yet?"

Never got a response after that! It was quite good fun for 20 mins or so 😂

Haven't had any other scam messages since.

I did. Unfortunately he didn’t respond 🥺

My colleague got one and replied ‘hang on I need to call the news, you’ll be famous for being able to text at 14 months!’

The first time I had one of these texts was a few years ago claiming to be my dd and needed money fast. My husband almost fell for it but I spoke to both my dd's who confirmed it was a scam.

It's so easy to be taken in by this, especially when it first happens.

The last time it happened I replied that I would transfer the money from a joint account when my husband came home from work, I also said that I'd transfer a little extra so that she could treat herself.

The text I received told me to #@ck off.

I was sorely disappointed 😞

I've had the same number for 25 years and a couple of years after getting my first phone I had a spam call. I put on a very serious voice and said slowly and sternly 'Never call this number again' and by some miracle that was the end of any unwanted calls.

What's the name of the sub, please?

(If I'm allowed to ask and you're allowed to tell???)

My dad got a message from her RE studies teacher saying he’d been robbed abroad of all his money and his passport and could she lend him some money to get home.
However the scammer gave himself away by saying ‘I’m on vacation…’
The teacher is British and works in a school in England so would have said ‘I’m on holiday’.

That's such a good idea

I’d be very worried about any teacher who texted a pupil asking for money.

I replied to one, telling them that they needed an apostrophe and also corrected other errors in their message. They didn’t reply and I haven’t had any other similar messages!

My mum got one of those messages. She put the number in her phone as my new number, deleted and blocked my actual number and then proceeded to message 'fake me' for a month. They never replied. I had a very peaceful month.

Learn from the best

Yeah it wood be funny to mess with them.

I'd be saying 'oh thank goodness you've got in touch, as you know I'm days from being evicted and was really relying on that £25k you said you'd lend me. What with my gambling and crack addiction having got so much worse over Christmas. Thanks again darling! Xxx'

My mum fell for this and believing my mobile was broken she sent a photo of the front and back of her credit card!! Needless to say they tried to clear her out. Her bank phoned her and she had the cheek to phone me on MY mobile (the one she thought was broken!) and ask in an accusing tone what id been doing with her credit card. 🤦‍♀️

Its not the first time shes been scammed. She's not old and frail or anything, just doesn't seem to learn. I despair with her.

Even if anyone thinks they're being clever replying "wasting a scammers time", the scammer just believes you're someone that engages with those kinds of scams and your number will be passed on. In reality, you're just doing yourself dirty.

I shouldn't laugh, but the irony 😂

My aunt did, last month. She messaged back, ‘which one of you is this?’ and got no reply.

I’ve kept these going right to the very end, right to them supplying their account name, number and sort code. I have then looked up the sort code to find out the bank and branch, reported a customer using one of their accounts to try to perpetrate fraud and reported the full details to Action Fraud. It can be very amusing - I’ve had three day long discussions with them about not missing their nanna’s birthday, taking the dog out for a walk and getting their haemorrhoid cream from the pharmacy. I do this for two reasons: it’s very satisfying to report them; and while they are desperately engaging with me about their Farmer Giles, they have less time to target someone who might fall for it. I have also plastered their names and details all over social media, along with the funniest snippets of the conversation. It not only makes people laugh, it’s a really good way of making others aware of these lowlifes. So I would say to go for it! Don’t make it obvious to begin with - I find you have to suck them in with annoyed parent act before slowly transitioning to full-on Joan Crawford. Although I do find I receive them less and less these days, so it might actually get you black listed. Winner winner!

@BlackCountryWench2 how on earth can you be bothered with all of this? It sounds exhausting and tedious.

I have better things to do with my time than engage with these pointless twats. I just block them

I think some people reason that whilst they are occupying the scammer that's removing some of their ability to start a new chat where someone may fall for it.