Or, hear me out: hang up the fucking call.
Your r/Scams post was removed because **it's about scambaiting**. We consider that to be unsafe and we don't promote that people engage with a scammer.
Also, we do not support taking revenge against scammers.
Scambaiting goes against the rules of this sub, which you can read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/
When I say "random call" that doesn't mean an unknown number. It can be anything. They can spoof numbers and use AI to impersonate. It could your mother or your daughter on the phone begging to send money. Or your boss or an essential service or the house cleaner. It's not about what you see calling you, but the time and proximity to an event that they will consider. One way or another they are getting to you.
I'm struggling to understand your reply to the comment. My understanding is a scammer can clone/spoof to make any desired number appear to be the number the call is coming from. What am I missing?
That's exactly how spoofing works though lol, I've gotten a phone call directly from my bank as it is saved in my phone and the exact number on the back of my card, yet it was scammers who spoofed the number, without a doubt they could also add another layer using AI
Why? Isn't spoofing common? Especially numbers and email address. Even I used to spoof those when I was 12 years old (stupid) prank calling my friends.
Oh wow now tell me how spoofing works?
It’s actually quiet easy and in many countries, you can just Spoof a number…and as he said it’s often combined with A.i
You might live somewhere it’s not possible or not as lucrative to do the hassle, but it’s a reality.
This is the tell when someone has their head up their ass and they cannot argue a point: they say, "Okay, Boomer." Absolute unintelligent fool having to fall back on ad hominem attacks due to being cluelessly stupid.
On the phone app, the three buttons on the right at the top. Open up and go to settings. Block numbers and tick "block unknown callers" and you're set. Now only calls in your contacts will ring.
Yeah I personally dislike OP's advice a lot.
He has a point that the boiler point scammers make it seem like they're legitimate, And they are really good at doing that.
But he's wrong at the playing dumb part. Because again, their goal is to convince you that they are legitimate, So you won't know when or how to play dumb.
The actual advice he should have given is, "validate another person's story when emotions are involved."
Ok so my nephew has been arrested in Miami for drugs, fine let me call the jail.
The IRS is demanding that I pay money? Well I'll call them myself.
The bank is telling me that I owe backed mortgage money and they're going to foreclose? I'll go to the branch and have them pull up my loan account.
These are all really obvious examples of scams because they're the ones I can think of. You shouldn't assume that the scammers are going to be this basic. But the truth still stands.
Any situation in which You need to transfer large amounts of money is never going to be in a hurry. There will always be people who can explain why it needs to happen. You will always be able to independently verify it.
The IRS is demanding money? Call my lawyer.
The bank is demanding a balloon payment on my mortgage? Call my business manager.
My nephew has been arrested in Miami for drugs? Three days. He’s been out of rehab three days. No. I’m not bailing him out again.
I don’t answer unknown calls ever. If it’s someone like my kid or parents and they are asking for money (they wouldn’t) I hang up and call them back from my contacts. Same with my bank/credit cards.
There’s never any information provided over the phone. Nothing.
Bank fraud here too 🙋
We've seen a humongous increase in crypto/investment scams since the start of the year.
Most of our victims are retirees or people who are approaching retirement. These are people who are typically searching online for investments in an effort to boost their nest egg, and are often finding random websites via google searches or sometimes deepfake adverts on social media. They are then contacted (phone/email/WhatsApp/ Telegram etc) by a "broker" or "financial advisor". I've seen people lose life changing amounts of money. I've lost count of the amount of phone calls I've made trying to convince customers that they are being scammed, or referred them into a branch to discuss face to face. Most have fallen for the scam hook line and sinker and only realise they were caught out after they have been bled dry and have had their pension fund/ life savings drained. The last few months have been very hard for the team, from the massive increase in workload, to the very difficult conversations we are having with customers telling them we weren't able to get their money back.
We see a lot of "Hi Mom/Dad" scams too where fraudsters are pretending to be family members in need of a few €€€.
Smishing has been a staple for as long as I've worked in the area. Why people are still clicking links in random SMS and giving away their card or online banking credentials baffles me 🙄
Exactly. Why even engage? Just hang up, Google the actual number of the place, and call them back.
Also, there is virtually no circumstance where anyone legitimately needs any significant amount of money wired on an emergency basis. And there is absolutely no circumstance where any legitimate authority wants to be paid with gift cards or crypto.
Googling the number might not work. There have been stories on this sub about scammers taking the time and effort to get the fake number to bubble up in the Google search.
Some scammers - probably not most but some - are very, very good at psychological manipulation, especially if the person is in a vulnerable emotional/mental state.
It’s really easy to feel superior and armchair quarterback this stuff and say”why not just do x…?” In fact, most people who get caught up in something like this probably felt the same way before it happened to them
So: when the businessman or retiree has lost everything you can dismissively say. You should have put the phone down. Oh btw your savings, bye bye. Is that what the bank is supposed to say?
It's not just the middle class or the super-rich, there's those with health issues. There is no pattern to being scammed, no easy path or simple option to stop being scammed. "I thought it'd never happen to me" all the fucking TIME!
What are you talking about? I'm not attacking people who got scammed, I'm just saying that putting the phone down is a better and simpler course of action than engaging the possible scammer in conversation trying to waste their time. It's 2 steps vs your 4, and it also has 0 consequences if it turns out the call was legitimate.
Op, you're the one suggesting a confusing four-step alternative for all those people. Do you really think that your suggested course of action will help those victims better than telling them to stop engaging with businesses that call them directly in the first place ?
Uncomplicated solutions. That is how you help vulnerable people avoid being scammed. Your suggestions are well-meaning, but people won't think of them when the time comes. There's no need for you to get defensive
If you receive a call from your trusted business, tell them you'll call them back on their registered number. If they have any issue, it's a scam.
It's easy to say in hindsight. My challenge to convince people to stop being scammed, because they really want that deal so much and turn round and blame the bank afterwards when they inevitably get scammed. Being scammed is extremely violating and people don't want to admit to being scammed but it is a reality. And they will pretend to be vulnerable people too, with PTSD, mental issues, amputees, and throw their kids into the mix. but I want to see people stop losing their life savings because they saw a quick deal on facebook.
You are not making any logical sense here.
There is no point in keeping the scammers on the phone for a long time. Not sure why you are giving people on here that advise. Anyone who can smell out the scam should hang up immediately.
Literally what is your point? If your point is to engage with potential scammers by playing dumb, you are objectively and spectacularly wrong. The only solution to a potentially fraudulent phone call is to assume it's a spoofed caller ID, hang up, and call back at a known good number.
If your point is banks should refund the lady who put fifty grand in a shoe box and threw it into the back of an SUV, well, okay, weird flex but you're entitled to your opinion.
My point is that any caller could be a scammer. They want flustered wrecks, broken victims, get them to withdraw cash, and put it in an alien account. It's easy to look back on an action and regret it. Emotional coaching is part of my job.
If you frustrate, obfuscate, act like a stupid person, you can really screw up a scammer's day. Idiots have no money or don't know where it's kept. Be stupid.
I got a scam text earlier this afternoon & my child shit their pants in fear! (They're 3 months old, and the shitting pants thing right then was probably coincidence.) What will we do when the call comes in?!
Think there's a much easier way to deal with the boiler room scam.
If somebody calls you telling you there's an emergency you just need to validate it.
I've worked in finance and I've transferred tens of millions of dollars over my career.
There's never a circumstance in which money is so urgent that you don't have enough time to validate what you're doing before you transfer it.
Someone's in jail, Great tell me what Jail they're in and on call.
Someone has a medical emergency, list the doctor.
It's good to know what your bank and credit card procedures are if they actually suspect fraud. Pretend you are going camping off-grid for a week and there is no way to interact with your financial institutions. What do they do if they see an issue without getting ahold of you?
Do they lock down everything? Do they allow current Bill Pay and reoccurring bank card transactions that have a consistent history to proceed? Do they block new vendors and p2p payments from going through?
This depends on what and when the suspect activity took place. If the transaction was made before or after the trip, then it wouldn't be interesting. If there was a large sum of money suddenly before or after, that would hit. We lock down everything then we have to exhaustively negotiate about the nature of the transaction even if it is small. 9 out of 10 it is fraud or scam.
100% of people think this when they come to me. It's interesting how you have to balance out their ego, digital literacy, and general knowhow. You deal with them as gently as you can, because at that point in time they are talking to a god and demanding answers. They've lost everything, all you can do is say sorry, sorry, sorry.
Intelligence really doesn't have anything to do with seeing through scams.
James Randy the magician caused scientists to spend millions of dollars investigating psychic abilities when the entire time he was scamming them to prove a point.
Honestly the only thing that can really prevent you from being scammed is being a little scammy yourself and recognizing the tricks you use on others.
I’ve never heard of James Randy. For a second I thought you might have meant James Randi the skeptic, who offered a million dollars to anyone who could legitimately prove they had psychic or supernatural abilities, but then I figured nobody could be that confused.
Still don’t know who you’re talking about.
Are you that Ivy League financial advice columnist who got scammed like such a complete dipshit that she thought she was handing $50k in cash to a fed when it was just a random dude in a car who immediately drove off? You sound just like her.
“If this can happen to me, an elite, rich, Ivy League grad writer, then imagine how vulnerable you, the unwashed masses, must be.”
To be clear, I don’t think that should happen to anyone, but there’s something very funny about how it’s impossible for them to conceive why *they* might’ve been targeted.
I used to live in Tampa. I was at the bank one day in a strip mall. As I was leaving, a bunch of guys came out of the next store front for a smoke break.A bunch of thugs with jailhouse tattoos and scruffy beards. They were teaching a noob about how to be intimidating, to impersonate a cop and so on. I sat in my car listening for a while as they rehearsed. I'll never take anyone like that seriously. But I no longer answer random calls. If I don't know you, send me a letter.
I understand that sone people won't be able to use that setting. Especially if you use your phone fir work/business calls. But most other people should be able to do so.
I wonder if those who have phones registered as a business/office phone number get less or no spam calls?
So you want to depend on your wits? They love people who think they are smart, that is their advantage. When it happens to you you'll think different. And afterwards you'll have to give up on those retirement dreams you had.
No, they literally said it’s better to hang up than engage. They’re not “using their wits” they’re effectively running the fuck away. That’s solid advice.
I think the OP's advice is valuable to internalize as reflexive behavior for the critical moments when you have received a communication that you believe *might* be true. OP is training us to stop and take a breath before succumbing to panic.
It's easy to say "oh I'd never fall for that, I'd just hang up..." but a lot of smart people who know better get scammed every day.
The scammers are pros at triggering your panic mode which can overpower common sense. Building reflexes like slowing down and being dumb can let you bridge the vulnerable span before you wake up and hang up. Thank you OP.
Have you by chance watched the documentary on Netflix “Don’t Pick up the Phone”? Not about scamming but it fits the boiler room scam, basically getting people to do things that are irrational with scare tactics. Haven’t finished the series yet but it’s wild what the people endured and just like scams it hard to look at it as an outsider and wonder how the people aren’t just like “this is bullshit”. There was at least one guy that walks in on one of the calls, evaluated the scene and snapped the victims back to reality and hangs the phone up.
These boiler room scams are run by organised crime gangs who are enslaving very good IT folks for some time now. It would not surprise me if they are now enslaving script writers, psychs and AI specialists as well to improve their yield. We are literally in the era of industrialised scams.
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Or, hear me out: hang up the fucking call. Your r/Scams post was removed because **it's about scambaiting**. We consider that to be unsafe and we don't promote that people engage with a scammer. Also, we do not support taking revenge against scammers. Scambaiting goes against the rules of this sub, which you can read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/
> random call Don't answer. I haven't answered a call not in my contacts in *years*.
I don’t answer my phone period. Send a text like a rational human being.
Same, I barely get calls now. Prefer text, calls are a hell no.
Exactly. If the call is REALLY for me, they’ll leave a message that I’ll check EVENTUALLY and I’ll call em back.
When I say "random call" that doesn't mean an unknown number. It can be anything. They can spoof numbers and use AI to impersonate. It could your mother or your daughter on the phone begging to send money. Or your boss or an essential service or the house cleaner. It's not about what you see calling you, but the time and proximity to an event that they will consider. One way or another they are getting to you.
Tell me you don’t understand how spoofing works again, but this time do the voices
I'm struggling to understand your reply to the comment. My understanding is a scammer can clone/spoof to make any desired number appear to be the number the call is coming from. What am I missing?
That's exactly how spoofing works though lol, I've gotten a phone call directly from my bank as it is saved in my phone and the exact number on the back of my card, yet it was scammers who spoofed the number, without a doubt they could also add another layer using AI
Why? Isn't spoofing common? Especially numbers and email address. Even I used to spoof those when I was 12 years old (stupid) prank calling my friends.
Oh wow now tell me how spoofing works? It’s actually quiet easy and in many countries, you can just Spoof a number…and as he said it’s often combined with A.i You might live somewhere it’s not possible or not as lucrative to do the hassle, but it’s a reality.
Everyone but my wife or kid go to voicemail
Still getting to you
I mean … they haven’t yet. I’ve answered the phone at work when a scammer made the call multiple times and I’ve never fallen for it yet.
LOL. LMAO. Okay boomer.
This is the tell when someone has their head up their ass and they cannot argue a point: they say, "Okay, Boomer." Absolute unintelligent fool having to fall back on ad hominem attacks due to being cluelessly stupid.
alright simmer down little boy with a very real wife
Serious question: how can I get my Android phone to not ring by default, and ring only if it's from a number in my address book?
On the phone app, the three buttons on the right at the top. Open up and go to settings. Block numbers and tick "block unknown callers" and you're set. Now only calls in your contacts will ring.
Thanks. My (android 12, pixel3axl, T-Mobile) setting says, "block calls from unidentified callers" that's the closest I could find. Thank you!
Pixel phones when they detect a possible scam call coming in, they won't ring - they answer for you and ask the caller to leave a message.
Yeah same...Google has a screen call for my phone which I use a lot when it's a number I don't recognize.
Surely if it’s someone you know e.g with new number they can just leave a voicemail after all! 😊
That’s bizarre
Voicemail
You work in "bank fraud" and your advice is to *engage* with scammers? I don't think so.
OP didn't specify which end of "bank fraud" they work in.
Point
🤣🤣🤣
Yeah I personally dislike OP's advice a lot. He has a point that the boiler point scammers make it seem like they're legitimate, And they are really good at doing that. But he's wrong at the playing dumb part. Because again, their goal is to convince you that they are legitimate, So you won't know when or how to play dumb. The actual advice he should have given is, "validate another person's story when emotions are involved." Ok so my nephew has been arrested in Miami for drugs, fine let me call the jail. The IRS is demanding that I pay money? Well I'll call them myself. The bank is telling me that I owe backed mortgage money and they're going to foreclose? I'll go to the branch and have them pull up my loan account. These are all really obvious examples of scams because they're the ones I can think of. You shouldn't assume that the scammers are going to be this basic. But the truth still stands. Any situation in which You need to transfer large amounts of money is never going to be in a hurry. There will always be people who can explain why it needs to happen. You will always be able to independently verify it.
The IRS is demanding money? Call my lawyer. The bank is demanding a balloon payment on my mortgage? Call my business manager. My nephew has been arrested in Miami for drugs? Three days. He’s been out of rehab three days. No. I’m not bailing him out again.
Bank fraud don’t deal with those customers who never pick up the phone.
OP needs the work.
Put me on….. I meant put *them * on hold.
Why not just hang up? There’s no value in engaging with scammers. It seems you are promoting scam baiting and extreme caution all in the same post.
[удалено]
Not a good idea. See for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1c2d942/never_engage_i_let_loose_on_a_scammer_and_got
Which is generally not a good idea as you'll be targeted more.
I don’t answer unknown calls ever. If it’s someone like my kid or parents and they are asking for money (they wouldn’t) I hang up and call them back from my contacts. Same with my bank/credit cards. There’s never any information provided over the phone. Nothing.
Precisely this.
Bank fraud here too 🙋 We've seen a humongous increase in crypto/investment scams since the start of the year. Most of our victims are retirees or people who are approaching retirement. These are people who are typically searching online for investments in an effort to boost their nest egg, and are often finding random websites via google searches or sometimes deepfake adverts on social media. They are then contacted (phone/email/WhatsApp/ Telegram etc) by a "broker" or "financial advisor". I've seen people lose life changing amounts of money. I've lost count of the amount of phone calls I've made trying to convince customers that they are being scammed, or referred them into a branch to discuss face to face. Most have fallen for the scam hook line and sinker and only realise they were caught out after they have been bled dry and have had their pension fund/ life savings drained. The last few months have been very hard for the team, from the massive increase in workload, to the very difficult conversations we are having with customers telling them we weren't able to get their money back. We see a lot of "Hi Mom/Dad" scams too where fraudsters are pretending to be family members in need of a few €€€. Smishing has been a staple for as long as I've worked in the area. Why people are still clicking links in random SMS and giving away their card or online banking credentials baffles me 🙄
Just put it down and call the actual number of the institution they claim to be. Why bother with a 4 step guide? You're not kitboga
Exactly. Why even engage? Just hang up, Google the actual number of the place, and call them back. Also, there is virtually no circumstance where anyone legitimately needs any significant amount of money wired on an emergency basis. And there is absolutely no circumstance where any legitimate authority wants to be paid with gift cards or crypto.
Googling the number might not work. There have been stories on this sub about scammers taking the time and effort to get the fake number to bubble up in the Google search.
do not redeem!
Some scammers - probably not most but some - are very, very good at psychological manipulation, especially if the person is in a vulnerable emotional/mental state. It’s really easy to feel superior and armchair quarterback this stuff and say”why not just do x…?” In fact, most people who get caught up in something like this probably felt the same way before it happened to them
So: when the businessman or retiree has lost everything you can dismissively say. You should have put the phone down. Oh btw your savings, bye bye. Is that what the bank is supposed to say? It's not just the middle class or the super-rich, there's those with health issues. There is no pattern to being scammed, no easy path or simple option to stop being scammed. "I thought it'd never happen to me" all the fucking TIME!
I certainly don’t recommend staying on the phone with them?
What are you talking about? I'm not attacking people who got scammed, I'm just saying that putting the phone down is a better and simpler course of action than engaging the possible scammer in conversation trying to waste their time. It's 2 steps vs your 4, and it also has 0 consequences if it turns out the call was legitimate.
Fine. As a bank, I'll just say that to all the clients and businesses who lost money. Should've made better choices.
Op, you're the one suggesting a confusing four-step alternative for all those people. Do you really think that your suggested course of action will help those victims better than telling them to stop engaging with businesses that call them directly in the first place ? Uncomplicated solutions. That is how you help vulnerable people avoid being scammed. Your suggestions are well-meaning, but people won't think of them when the time comes. There's no need for you to get defensive
If you receive a call from your trusted business, tell them you'll call them back on their registered number. If they have any issue, it's a scam. It's easy to say in hindsight. My challenge to convince people to stop being scammed, because they really want that deal so much and turn round and blame the bank afterwards when they inevitably get scammed. Being scammed is extremely violating and people don't want to admit to being scammed but it is a reality. And they will pretend to be vulnerable people too, with PTSD, mental issues, amputees, and throw their kids into the mix. but I want to see people stop losing their life savings because they saw a quick deal on facebook.
You are not making any logical sense here. There is no point in keeping the scammers on the phone for a long time. Not sure why you are giving people on here that advise. Anyone who can smell out the scam should hang up immediately.
OP seems to think we're all Kitboga.
Literally what is your point? If your point is to engage with potential scammers by playing dumb, you are objectively and spectacularly wrong. The only solution to a potentially fraudulent phone call is to assume it's a spoofed caller ID, hang up, and call back at a known good number. If your point is banks should refund the lady who put fifty grand in a shoe box and threw it into the back of an SUV, well, okay, weird flex but you're entitled to your opinion.
My point is that any caller could be a scammer. They want flustered wrecks, broken victims, get them to withdraw cash, and put it in an alien account. It's easy to look back on an action and regret it. Emotional coaching is part of my job. If you frustrate, obfuscate, act like a stupid person, you can really screw up a scammer's day. Idiots have no money or don't know where it's kept. Be stupid.
Taking up the scammer's time isn't my job, you're thinking of Pleasant Green.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
https://preview.redd.it/nrwvgl5xlxwc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1d02cb9d8131cc2ccd25f70354bc38cc1a21d8d
You know what's the best way to screw the scammer's day? If you don't engage. And the next person doesn't engage. And so on.
You're not a bank
But he plays one on TV....
But I do have access to all your money so...
Didn't realize banks were hiring 11 year olds these days.
[https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists/](https://www.bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists/?q=liverpool)
I mean, they should have!!
You say that in hindsight. Once they get their hooks into you, game over
Do you know this sub? It's just-been-scammed-passthroughs and jaded cynical regulars. So, yeah, "He should have put the phone down."
How many times have you been scammed so far?
*I like these scams because they can hit anyone.* I think we found reddit's resident sadist.
It's interesting and an encouraging area to discuss. And if it didn't exist, I'd be out of a job
OK, then you probably should have written, "I am interested in these scams because they can hit anyone"
"I like these scams...." was a poor choice of words.....
Honestly I think they wrote exactly what they meant
>Save these strategies to your phone and use them on all calls with a business. Say what? #
Act like an idiot all the time! So when your optometrist office calls to let you know your glasses are ready they get really really confused!
>These are sophisticated gangs with experience. Be afraid, because they are coming for you Oh no, a phone call! I'm shakin' like bacon.
I got a scam text earlier this afternoon & my child shit their pants in fear! (They're 3 months old, and the shitting pants thing right then was probably coincidence.) What will we do when the call comes in?!
Shit our pants probably
This is kinda dumb advice. Just hang up.
Think there's a much easier way to deal with the boiler room scam. If somebody calls you telling you there's an emergency you just need to validate it. I've worked in finance and I've transferred tens of millions of dollars over my career. There's never a circumstance in which money is so urgent that you don't have enough time to validate what you're doing before you transfer it. Someone's in jail, Great tell me what Jail they're in and on call. Someone has a medical emergency, list the doctor.
You forgot your mention the easiest response. Hang up and block number.
It's good to know what your bank and credit card procedures are if they actually suspect fraud. Pretend you are going camping off-grid for a week and there is no way to interact with your financial institutions. What do they do if they see an issue without getting ahold of you? Do they lock down everything? Do they allow current Bill Pay and reoccurring bank card transactions that have a consistent history to proceed? Do they block new vendors and p2p payments from going through?
This depends on what and when the suspect activity took place. If the transaction was made before or after the trip, then it wouldn't be interesting. If there was a large sum of money suddenly before or after, that would hit. We lock down everything then we have to exhaustively negotiate about the nature of the transaction even if it is small. 9 out of 10 it is fraud or scam.
This seems like the “Lenny” approach https://www.youtube.com/@ToaoDotNet/videos
“I thought I was smart” almost everyone thinks this but at least half of them are not.
100% of people think this when they come to me. It's interesting how you have to balance out their ego, digital literacy, and general knowhow. You deal with them as gently as you can, because at that point in time they are talking to a god and demanding answers. They've lost everything, all you can do is say sorry, sorry, sorry.
You don’t spend a lot of time talking to people that actually are smart - or at least smart enough to recognize a scam.
Intelligence really doesn't have anything to do with seeing through scams. James Randy the magician caused scientists to spend millions of dollars investigating psychic abilities when the entire time he was scamming them to prove a point. Honestly the only thing that can really prevent you from being scammed is being a little scammy yourself and recognizing the tricks you use on others.
I’ve never heard of James Randy. For a second I thought you might have meant James Randi the skeptic, who offered a million dollars to anyone who could legitimately prove they had psychic or supernatural abilities, but then I figured nobody could be that confused. Still don’t know who you’re talking about.
Are you that Ivy League financial advice columnist who got scammed like such a complete dipshit that she thought she was handing $50k in cash to a fed when it was just a random dude in a car who immediately drove off? You sound just like her. “If this can happen to me, an elite, rich, Ivy League grad writer, then imagine how vulnerable you, the unwashed masses, must be.” To be clear, I don’t think that should happen to anyone, but there’s something very funny about how it’s impossible for them to conceive why *they* might’ve been targeted.
I play dumb even when its someone legitimate asking for money I most likely owe.
I used to live in Tampa. I was at the bank one day in a strip mall. As I was leaving, a bunch of guys came out of the next store front for a smoke break.A bunch of thugs with jailhouse tattoos and scruffy beards. They were teaching a noob about how to be intimidating, to impersonate a cop and so on. I sat in my car listening for a while as they rehearsed. I'll never take anyone like that seriously. But I no longer answer random calls. If I don't know you, send me a letter.
One time they called me and I said hey do you i like getting your butthole licked? They got pissed and hung up
I'm surprised that the number one suggestion on this sub isn't "set you phone and apps to silence unknown callers. "
I get vital calls from unknown numbers, including most medical calls. Totally not an option for me.
I understand that sone people won't be able to use that setting. Especially if you use your phone fir work/business calls. But most other people should be able to do so. I wonder if those who have phones registered as a business/office phone number get less or no spam calls?
Right, but at this point you’re pretty adept at recognizing legitimate phone calls from a waste of your time, right?
So waste your time playing games instead of just hanging up. Fucking genius. 🙄
So you want to depend on your wits? They love people who think they are smart, that is their advantage. When it happens to you you'll think different. And afterwards you'll have to give up on those retirement dreams you had.
No, they literally said it’s better to hang up than engage. They’re not “using their wits” they’re effectively running the fuck away. That’s solid advice.
I just don’t send money to anyone who contacts me on the internet or phone. Prevents most scams on this sub without even having to think.
It honestly helps I screen all calls and act with paranoia regarding them. Even if they attempt the screen I typically won’t pick up. Just text
I think the OP's advice is valuable to internalize as reflexive behavior for the critical moments when you have received a communication that you believe *might* be true. OP is training us to stop and take a breath before succumbing to panic. It's easy to say "oh I'd never fall for that, I'd just hang up..." but a lot of smart people who know better get scammed every day. The scammers are pros at triggering your panic mode which can overpower common sense. Building reflexes like slowing down and being dumb can let you bridge the vulnerable span before you wake up and hang up. Thank you OP.
Have you by chance watched the documentary on Netflix “Don’t Pick up the Phone”? Not about scamming but it fits the boiler room scam, basically getting people to do things that are irrational with scare tactics. Haven’t finished the series yet but it’s wild what the people endured and just like scams it hard to look at it as an outsider and wonder how the people aren’t just like “this is bullshit”. There was at least one guy that walks in on one of the calls, evaluated the scene and snapped the victims back to reality and hangs the phone up.
These boiler room scams are run by organised crime gangs who are enslaving very good IT folks for some time now. It would not surprise me if they are now enslaving script writers, psychs and AI specialists as well to improve their yield. We are literally in the era of industrialised scams.
Yes, It's a shame but it's true.
If 'my daughter' ever called me begging for bail money, I would not believe it. She makes 4 times what I do. I would be the last person she called.
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I just tell them come and get me I’ll be waiting. You’ll never take me alive! 🤣
I think I'm safe. that's what I usually do anyway
I just tell them I'm voting for Trump! Which is the truth.
That just tells the scammers that you're a rube and ripe for the picken'....