Mess with Scammers?

[BengalHawk62]

Normally, I do not pick up unknown calls. But today I'm waiting for the repairman to call. When I answered, there was a long pause as the robodialer was transferring the call to the next human in line.

There was a resounding click.

A gent with a gravelly voice with a heavy Indian accent picked up. "Hello. This is US Pharmacy company calling about your Medicare." [Gravelly cleared his throat] "What plan do you have?" 

I waited for a pause, and used my best policeman voice: "Sir, this is the Federal police. Your call has been transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ..." [really stressed that Federal part] "... we are tracing your call now. As soon as the trace is complete, we will contact the local police in your town. And they will come to arrest you!"

Stopped to let that sink in.

"We need three more minutes to complete the trace. Please.....keep talking."

Started counting in my head.

He hung up at three.

Damn!

I hope he peaks out the window for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyone else ever toy with these scammers?

[Bengal Dude]

I answered a call while in high school. We kept getting the same telemarketing calls. I took German so I just spoke a little and got the person upset and they eventually hung up. Got a call from the same company a couple of days later and I did the same thing. They disconnected the call. A few days later we get another call. The person immediately started speaking German and I responded, "Uh, I'm not sure what language you're speaking, but we're not interested."

It kept up for another week, but the operators were getting frustrated by the changing languages.

[Tiger Teeth]

(05-31-2017, 12:55 PM)BengalHawk62 Wrote: Normally, I do not pick up unknown calls. But today I'm waiting for the repairman to call. When I answered, there was a long pause as the robodialer was transferring the call to the next human in line.

There was a resounding click.

A gent with a gravelly voice with a heavy Indian accent picked up. "Hello. This is US Pharmacy company calling about your Medicare." [Gravelly cleared his throat] "What plan do you have?" 

I waited for a pause, and used my best policeman voice: "Sir, this is the Federal police. Your call has been transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ..." [really stressed that Federal part] "... we are tracing your call now. As soon as the trace is complete, we will contact the local police in your town. And they will come to arrest you!"

Stopped to let that sink in.

"We need three more minutes to complete the trace. Please.....keep talking."

Started counting in my head.

He hung up at three.

Damn!

I hope he peaks out the window for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyone else ever toy with these scammers?

Yeah, I always ask them for their home phone number and tell them I'll call them at home later in the evening.  I get some interesting responses to that one.

[HarleyDog]

I usually sit the phone down and walk away and let them talk until they figure out I'm not there.

[*michaelsean*]

If you want to mess with a real scammer, call 866-978-8273 option 2 and ask for Kevin at extension 3502. They pretend to be Duke Energy and say thet are shutting off your power in 1 hour. They won't take our calls anymore.

[Benton]

Automated callers have ruined so much fun.

Used to if i answered and someone started trying to sell me something or ask for a donation or whatever, i'd just have some fun. I liked repeat (just say everything they say back to them) or i'd run to a sink and start running water, then start talking about how I needed to go to the bathroom.

But the robots have ruined it with their "Hi, can you hear me?"

[*michaelsean*]

Got a call today:

"Hi this is TriHealth. Is this Michael?"
"Yes"
"We are just calling to make sure you are getting your statements ok"
"I guess"
"So you are receiving your statements?"
"I don't really know. My wife does that stuff. Do we have statements to receive?"
"I don't know. Would you like me to check?"
"You don't know but you want to know if I'm getting them?"
"Well I can look it up. It looks like a dependent. If you could give me a name and birthdate I could tell you."
"Uhhhh.....no."

Pretty weak approach. Really needs some work.