Answering unknown number calls on my cell phone like a receptionist really confuses scammers.
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I sometimes answer pretending to speak french and saying a couple of phrases I learned at school 40 years ago.
@raymierussell Funny, I do the same with english @vees
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@raymierussell Funny, I do the same with english @vees
Mercy Buckets as the French don't say.
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Mercy Buckets as the French don't say.
@raymierussell Lol
No, indeed, we don't say that
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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 wish I got that much entertainment out of them. Here's how mine go.
Me: "Who is this"
30 sec silence
Click -
I sometimes answer pretending to speak french and saying a couple of phrases I learned at school 40 years ago.
@raymierussell @vees ``Fook orf.''
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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 @vees Just like the olden days.
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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 This is brilliant AND fun! I generally don't answer the unknown callers, but if I do accidentally, I will try this approach!
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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 My daughter tries to sell them double glazing.
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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 Nowadays, we can pretend to be an AI call center chatbot.
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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.
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.".
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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 "FBI Headquarters, how may I direct your 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 I’m partial to “Financial crimes reporting, this is an unsecured line.”
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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.
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: ' ... '
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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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