Answering unknown number calls on my cell phone like a receptionist really confuses scammers.
"Good afternoon, thanks for calling!"
"Hello."
"Hi, who's calling please?"
"This is Experian Security Services calling to discuss an urgent issue with your account."
"Who are you trying to reach?"
"I am looking to talk to the owner of this phone number."
"I'm sorry, I'll need a name to help you."
30 seconds of silence.
Call hangs up.
@vfrmedia @acm_redfox @vees
I don't see where this fact is preventing the approach from working?
Do you think the scanner will complain "this is a mobile number, you can't be a receptionist"?
The scammers work with a script (and on a tight schedule) on the first level any significant deviation from the script will lead to them hanging up.
It's important to remember that it's quite likely that the people who call you are victims themself in some way. They might be tricked into believing they are doing a valid job, the job might be their only income, or they are even forced to do the job
@realn2s @acm_redfox @vees it may be different across countries, but from monitoring multiple such calls at work, its appears that the scammers who target UK know the difference between fixed and mobile numbers, also business and residential landlines, and target their pitches accordingly. In many cases the ones specifically targeting businesses have at least some basic info about the nature of the business.
That said, there are way fewer such calls than a few years ago, maybe the authorities are getting quicker at disconnecting the phone circuits they misuse..
@vees I never answer my phone with "Hello", but with reciting my phone number. How they respond to that is a good indication of whether they are a legitimate caller or not; the ones following a script tend to get confused. I then repeat my phone number. The more confused they get, the more likely I am to just keep repeating it.
With legitimate callers, reciting my phone number is merely a confirmation that they called the correct phone number (and helps me memorise it, too).
@cigitalgem @vees I seem to recall someone answering with "By placing this call you agree to be billed at $9.99 per minute" or something similar.
I usually start with "How may I assist you on this fine day?" or "Please state the nature of this call." and even those rarely gets a response.
I've found answering the phone "ahoy" tends to end things fairly rapidly.
I sometimes answer pretending to speak french and saying a couple of phrases I learned at school 40 years ago.
Mercy Buckets as the French don't say. ;-)
@raymierussell Lol
No, indeed, we don't say that 😂
@vees I wish I got that much entertainment out of them. Here's how mine go.
Me: "Who is this"
30 sec silence
Click
This made me think of the old Lily Tomlin phone company sketches 🤣
I answer the phone with "Alligator Control, how may I help you?"[1] which usually stops people who don't know me in their tracks. 3:O)>
[1] A holdover from when I did Tech Support and knew that if it was $Dayjob I was about to be up to my ass in alligators very shortly. This response is now set in stone (unless I recognise the caller-ID).
As someone noted on ASR, back in the day: "What we really need is Caller IQ.".
Excellent!
The last time I had a 'your computer has a virus' call, it was quite easy to drop into 'Busy ops department':
scam: 'yr computer, etc'
JHR, tired: 'right. which one?'
S: 'its running windows'
JHR: 'do you have a service tag?'
S: ' ... '
@vees Last year I fiddled around with SIP as I wanted to look up calling numbers from my customer database. Just for fun I then wrote a script which looked up the calling number from a phone scam registry. If it was found, the script waited for the initial silence from the caller and then played a recording of me asking if they could hold on for a second as I had to get the front door urgently. The script then measured the time until the connection was closed.
Record so far is 32 minutes.
@vees
I always answer with “please be advised this is a recorded line, state your full name” in my best Robo voice. After a 5 second pause, I repeat the statement. This usually gets me off their phone lists for a solid six months.
On the off chance that it is someone I know with a new phone, they laugh and know that they’re speaking to me!
@vees I am legally required to share this link:
A few seconds of silence often seems to do the job. They hang up. I assume it's a super-optimised operation.
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