So I'm a professional magician. That pretty much takes up most of my time. But I do have hobbies. And I thought I'd share with you one of my favourites. I don't often get the opportunity to do this one, but when I do I try to make it last as long as possible. It's more fun that way. Usually, the other person starts this and I try and drag it out as long as possible - just for fun. It's something you can do in your home, in bed - wherever you are.
It's not as dirty as it sounds - honest. My favourite thing to do in my free time is to waste time by playing a game. Not my time - but these guys...
I searched for cyber scammer and this was the best free picture I could find. One of my favourite past times is to wind up these scammers and see how long I can keep them on the phone for. You know the type. You get a call from someone with a suspiciously thick Asian accent, yet with a very traditional British name (the last one I had was called Keith I believe) They then encourage you to part with either your personal information or normally your cash to fix a fictitious computer problem (or they will try to lock you out of your computer and offer to "repair" it with their access codes - for a modest fee of course). Either that or they claim to be from the FBI, HMRC or some other government body and you apparently owe them taxes or a refund error. These fuckers scam countless (usually vulnerable) people out of their money and sell on their details so they can be scammed again and need to be stopped. So what better way to stop them, than by having fun at their expense.
It truly is a waste of time I know, but there is a noble reason for doing this too. When I started doing this it was because I was speaking to one of my elderly relatives who got a call from one of these guys saying that their internet had problems. Because he knows I'm their tech guy he called me up to ask about it and I told him to ignore it, but it got me thinking that he wasn't the only one. How many people fall for these scams every day? If they can speak to say 50 people in a day and scam even 2 of them, these people can make thousands off vulnerable people who don't even realise they got nothing for it. So whenever I get one of these scam calls I set out to see how long I can keep them on the phone for without giving them any information.
This is my logic. If people like me get one of these calls I know they aren't real. If I just hang up on them the scammers auto dialler just connects them to another person who will probably fall for the scam. So the longer I can stay on the phone the fewer people they can scam and steal money from. And the more people who do this the less profitable it will be for these people and may deter them from continuing the scams. And how infuriating must it be for someone to spend 20 minutes thinking they have got a payday coming in to be suddenly let down.
So - to the game! The rules are simple. To win you just have to keep the scammer on the phone as long as possible. You can use lots of different tactics to keep them on the phone but be warned. As soon as they realise you are doing this they will probably shout a few obscenities at you and then hang up so you have to really be subtle to keep them on the phone (In all honesty you can keep them on the phone while they shout abuse at you too - that time still counts). They're used to people winding them up so the best way to keep them on the phone is to slow the process down as much as you can. Be awkward, but not too awkward. There are other ways but this one usually annoys them the most.
These are some of the fun ways you can do this (all tried and tested)
- Pretend to be hard of hearing... "I'm sorry what was that?" "It's a bit of a bad line..." "Could you repeat that"
- Mis-spell things... "you want me to go to www.tamv... sorry teamv...." (and repeat)
- Computer problems... "It's not loading sorry.... gosh it's taking so much time..."
- Putting them on hold... popping back a minute later apologising and putting them on hold again
- Asking them questions
- My personal favourite, child emergency. Shouting at an imaginary child, telling this child I'm having to deal with an emergency etc, answering questions from the child.
- And If I really want cheering up I let my child talk to them while I go to the "loo"
- Have irrelevant conversations about anything with them. Go off on as many tangents as you can when they talk to you. They find it so annoying trying to get you back on track.
I'm sure there are probably a lot more creative ideas out there of how to keep these scammers on the line and I'd love to hear what you do if you join in this game, but I really encourage you to join in annoying the scammers and push it as long as you can. It's really amusing to keep these people on the hook as they are being so patient with you as you misspell their password for the 4th time and start asking about their day while they are waiting for you. My favourite thing is when they figure out you are pulling their leg, accuse you of it and you manage to persuade them that no you are actually real and not pulling their leg - for them to continue "helping" you for a few minutes more.
To hear the frustration of these horrible people on the phone really makes it seem worthwhile - and its a fun challenge that keeps you on your feet.
Have fun and let me know how it goes...