OT. Amazon Scam

On Thu, 26 Nov 2020 15:39:45 -0800, T posted for all of us to digest...

I got one from myself

The best approach is still to keep them on the phone as long as you can and not buy anything or give them any useful information. Time is money for these people. The whole operation loses if they have people talking to hecklers all day.

I've gotten the "grandpop" call several times. That is where your grandson got beat up and is in jail and needs bail.

I have no grandsons but one I said, is that you Jimmy, and they say yes.

Then I tell them I have no black grandsons and they go berserk.

I've had several calls with my own name shown on the phone's CID. I've never answered one. Didn't want to argue with myself.

I doubt that a few of you (out of billions of calls) will stop many future calls. If you enjoy playing with them then enjoy. I don't want to waste my time. I use NoMoRoBo on the home phone and it cuts the problem down about 90%.

I get one about once a week, on my cell phone. I never answer them but they do leave voicemail. It sounds as if it's trying to fool me into thinking the message is part of the voicemail system I called. It doesn't sound like the system I use (Verizon). It sounds drunk.

I have a device on my home phone that limits the rings to 1 unless it is from a recognized number.

Most of the junk calls are easily identified by the name on the caller ID. Often a city & state like.

DENVER CO HALLSVILLE TX

also:

TOLL FREE CALL Out of area (with a number)

Now I need to ignore all other unrecognized caller ID.

I don't understand why people say that blocking by NAME is useless. It would appear to be very effective here (the city-states can be recognized by things like "* TX").

They're welcome to come by for a visit ... I have 12 heavily wooded acres and my neighbor lets me use his backhoe any time I want .

I never know when I might get an wanted out of state call. Also many local residents have cell phones with permanent numbers from all over the counry. So automatically blocking a state or area code would be impractical for me.

:-)

My favorite one is telling them the grand kid is a jerk and he deserves to spend a few days in jail.

You have to be careful though. I have gotten a few calls that looked like the typical spam called. One was the pharmacy, another was my doctor's office with test results.

Depending on the mood I'm in, I've cursed at several of them, "Go to hell"** and I haven't noticed an increase in calls.

LOL

Yeah, I answered one of those calls and I treated her like a spammer.

I don't think she got angry.

That's wise. You can't win.

On Thu, 26 Nov 2020 18:24:17 +0000 (UTC), AJL posted for all of us to digest...

That has happened to me. I did it once and got calls from the general public asking why I was calling. One elderly lady even after I explained the scam wanted to give me all her details SSN# CC#. I coulda made a bundle at this poor ladies expense. This went on for days. The second time I did it they rang my phone for hours. I ignored them. My wife can't, she wants to know every call. I presume she thinks I have a secret girlfriend or sumthin...

Beware!

What I was talking about was NOT "blocking a state or area code". If was about blocking something with the caller ID name that specified a state. AFAIK, these are for unassigned numbers.

Most likely, your pharmacy is not identified as a city. In case it was, I would know that and make an exception for it.

But, But, do you at least get to win the argument?

No?

:'(