Answering unknown number calls on my cell phone like a receptionist really confuses scammers.
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@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.
@dshan @vees Same here. But I have a few callers that will not leave the prompted name and reason for call, and instead call repeatedly. Don't they realize the call simply is not coming through without it? Maybe it's a learning process; I had a driver ask me about why my phone number prompts, and they are an iPhone user.
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@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
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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@effariwhy @vees “Shouldn’t you already know?”
“Aw, you got me…this is the CIA.” -
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 can confirm that "This is Ellie, how may I direct your call?" also works fabulously.
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@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?".
@jspath55 Even better!
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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 Another way I trap scammers is if they ask for "Mrs" (my-surname). I will cheerfully say "There's no Mrs MySurname here!"
Because I'm not, and have never been, married, therefore there is no "Mrs." here.Yes, sometimes this catches legitimate callers, but only if they have never had dealings with me before... which is rare.
A variation on that is "No, she's not here, can I take a message?"
They never leave a message.
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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
@codebam @vees There was one time, and one time only, that I had the patience to lead them on as they were directing me to do things like open my Windows Registry, and I played the dumb-user card and said, "but I can't find that, it isn't on my menu" and so on.
I wasn't very patient, though, because after five minutes I broke down and said "I'm running Linux, and I know you are a scammer, goodbye!" -
@codebam @vees There was one time, and one time only, that I had the patience to lead them on as they were directing me to do things like open my Windows Registry, and I played the dumb-user card and said, "but I can't find that, it isn't on my menu" and so on.
I wasn't very patient, though, because after five minutes I broke down and said "I'm running Linux, and I know you are a scammer, goodbye!"@kerravonsen @vees If you go through what they want you to do they usually have you open Event Viewer and tell you you need antivirus software. Once they have remote control they can do anything, depends who you're dealing with and what they find on your PC. Often they try to send themselves money from your bank account
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@vees My daughter tries to sell them double glazing.
@green_bens @vees Good one!
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@vees Another way I trap scammers is if they ask for "Mrs" (my-surname). I will cheerfully say "There's no Mrs MySurname here!"
Because I'm not, and have never been, married, therefore there is no "Mrs." here.Yes, sometimes this catches legitimate callers, but only if they have never had dealings with me before... which is rare.
A variation on that is "No, she's not here, can I take a message?"
They never leave a message.
@kerravonsen @vees Connecting you with Mrs. [surname].
"Woof. Woof woof!" -
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 found out it is working with other languages. I am German but live in Romania. When they call I ask if we can speak in English. After many years now I can say, none of them want that. They hang up or say no and hang up.
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@acm_redfox @vees this will actually work in USA, where the mobile numbers are mixed up in the dialplan with all the others (in other parts of the world, mobile numbers have their own code prefix and most of the scammers know this (although we do also have Communications Minstries and regulators with more teeth, so its not that common to get a real human making a scam call (more often only odd voice messages, sometimes in Chinese))
@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
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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 did this once and eventually the caller told me "I'm trying to reach Mr Cheeky Bastard" before hanging up.
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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 @rasterweb @vees Il have to try that receptionist thing! My way of dealing with known scammers so far was to just leave my phone on mute and continue with my work. Most calls I receive don't connect the scammer until I press a key, so I'm certain it's a scam and every second they wait for an answer is a second they're not trying to scam someone else...
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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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I sometimes answer pretending to speak french and saying a couple of phrases I learned at school 40 years ago.
@raymierussell @vees I live in Poland, and I have found just answering with "Hello, how may I help?" Cuts down on human scammers tremendously.
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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 Try using weird intonation (but the same for the same digit) like a numbers station:
https://archive.org/details/ird059/tcp_d1_03_counting_control_irdial.mp3
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@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..
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@cigitalgem @rasterweb @vees Il have to try that receptionist thing! My way of dealing with known scammers so far was to just leave my phone on mute and continue with my work. Most calls I receive don't connect the scammer until I press a key, so I'm certain it's a scam and every second they wait for an answer is a second they're not trying to scam someone else...
I've found answering the phone "ahoy" tends to end things fairly rapidly.
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@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!
@grayladywriter @vees "This call is being recorded for quality and training purposes."
