[FRIAM] do you answer those phone calls?

[Barry MacKichan]

Our phone service here (in N. Carolina) includes caller id by voice — 
which is generated by a text-to-voice program that hilariously garbles 
the text. It seems like state of the art circa 1990.

Back when there were humans on the line (usually trying to pump stocks), 
I’d say hello and then carefully lay the handset on my desk. After 
about 40 seconds I could faintly hear “Barry, … Barry? Barry? 
Click” I wasn’t keeping track, but my sense is that the number of 
those calls went down.

The only number I give out now is my cell phone, which is relatively 
immune to these calls. For the moment, anyway.

—Barry


On 4 Oct 2021, at 12:24, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:

> Who scams the scammers? Meet the scambaiters
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/03/who-scams-the-scammers-meet-the-amateur-scambaiters-taking-on-the-crooks
>
> Story: When Renee' and I first got the new phone number here in Oly, 
> the calls were non-stop, 10-20 per day on the landline. I just removed 
> the phone from my office and don't look at or check messages on the 
> landline anymore. But I finally bit the bullet and started answering 
> every call. And talking to whoever was there. If I had to push a 
> button to get to a human, I pushed the button. If I had to talk to a 
> robot for awhile in order to get to a human, I talked to the robot. 
> After about a week of this, the calls started to fade. After about a 
> month, we were down to 1-3 calls per day. Now we're down to maybe 2-3 
> per week.
>
> It works to simply waste their time. And it works whether their 
> "legitimate" life insurance salespeople or scammers.
>
> -- 
> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
>
>
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