Re: Unsolicited phone calls.

[Vir Campestris]

No. Just say, "Hang on a moment" and put the phone down on the table. They will sit there for several minutes before they realise you aren't coming back, which wastes more of their time.

Andy

[Colin Bignell]

The ones I get seem to be an AI. They won't care.

[Adrian]

And in doing so, you are reducing the chance of them calling someone gullible enough to fall for what ever they are trying to sell you.

Adrian

[HVS]

On 28 Nov 2023, Adrian wrote

I just let them know that I know they're scum; hang up without waiting for a reply; and block the number (if they've not hidden it somehow).

I can't be arsed to waste the time it takes to waste their time.

[Scott]

I have wondered if they could retaliate by calling repeatedly day and night (using different CLI) presentation numbers but I have never heard of this happening in practice.

[ken]

I have seen one operation do that.

[John Rumm]

I quite like the scheme one of the youtube scam baiters did recently. They allowed some scams to progress to the point where the scammer believed that their mark had driven to a crypto fund payment machine, and deposited cash ready for the scammer to claim. They then sent a copy of the receipt that the machine supposedly printed. That lead them to a web site where all the needed to do was register for an account, and they could then withdraw their funds...

That was where a whole world of pain started. The site was very carefully crafted to make them waste hours just trying to claim their cash. With loads of ever more onerous and ridiculous "security" checks to jump through before they could process the withdraw. Which would then always fail for some unexpected reason. There were lots of delays built in - so getting this far would take many hours. After multiple tries (often over days and weeks) it would refer them to the support number. At which point they entered the worlds most irritating IVR system with menus that lead round and round in loops. They could spend days lost in that, before actually getting through to a human, who could egg them along a bit before dropping the call etc.

[Vir Campestris]

Nevertheless you will tie up their phone line. Even when it's an IP phone.

Andy

[Brian Gaff]

Hmm, how do you know? In any case, my true call VI seems to be doing a good job of getting rid of these callers. Now all we need is one for our mobiles. Brian

[Bazza]

I just love keeping hem on the line -especially the ones who say that I have a virus on my PC and they will help me to get rid of it.

I play thick and keep asking them questions and then ask them to hold on as I have someone at the front door with a delivery. etc etc.

Later I say I really appreciate their help and then when they start telling me what to do, I say hang on while I start up my PC. That takes ages and ages. And then I say OK i will connect to the internet. I have a shortcut to an audio file of a modem going through the connecting process with all the appropriate sounds.

To string it out , I say the page is taking a long time to load.

Then I make out my PC has crashed and so on and on it goes for ages and ages....

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Just have your phone set up, so that all numbers (or no numbers), will go to voice mail. Valid callers will leave a message, invalid ones will not.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Smart phones usually have one built in..