Answering unknown number calls on my cell phone like a receptionist really confuses scammers.
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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.
@vees I will try this
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@kerravonsen @vees Just like the olden days.
@khleedril @kerravonsen @vees 'GRosvenor 4761.' You could add the date: '4th March 1969.'
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@vees Nowadays, we can pretend to be an AI call center chatbot.
@vees heh eh. I didn't catch that. Could you repeat that? On a scale of one to five, with one being most satisfied, and five being most satisfied, how would you rate this call?
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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.
@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.
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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.
@vees Clever!
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M malte@radikal.social shared this topic
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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.
@vees “setec astronomy”
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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.
@vees
Usually I tell them they'd be connected to the IT department, then put the call on hold.
Up to them to figure and hang up. -
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.
@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!
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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.
@vees I am legally required to share this link:
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@vees If you say "This call is being monitored and recorded for quality assurance" you can cut your call times down to 10 seconds.
@rasterweb @vees I have found that to be the case too. "Please acknowledge that you understand this call is being recorded." Always speeds things along.
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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.
@vees i usually 'put them on hold for a second' ... just put my phone down and carry on doing whatever it was that they interrupted. occasionally hear their faint "hello?"s. see how long they hold out before hanging up. any second they waste with me is a second they're not scamming somebody
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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.
-
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.
@vees "Enter Launch Code" works a treat too
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@rasterweb @vees I have found that to be the case too. "Please acknowledge that you understand this call is being recorded." Always speeds things along.
@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.
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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.
@vees ask them to agree to binding arbitration
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@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).
@kerravonsen Good one. I've found the words that correspond to our numbers digits; I should try saying those out loud to scammers and wait for the "huh, what?".
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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.
@vees I just tell them I use Linux and half the time their scam involves installing Windows only software. They immediately hang up
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@vees I just tell them I use Linux and half the time their scam involves installing Windows only software. They immediately hang up
@vees after reading comments though... I should just click to record the call
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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.
@vees Thank God for iOS 26 and being able to screen unknown callers automatically. It's saved me wasting my time with this sort of pavlava and reduced my spam calls to almost zero. The single best iPhone feature since Face ID.
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@vees This is brilliant AND fun! I generally don't answer the unknown callers, but if I do accidentally, I will try this approach!
@ColesStreetPothole @vees
I had my screening off the other day and got a vaguely work adjacent cold call “Hi this is [rando] from [acronym] calling for [mangles my name].” I answered “from *WHERE*” to which he explained who the acronym company was… to which I responded “I don’t need that” and hung up. Hopefully nobody needs whatever consulting he said, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be giving him my number. Sad.
