I’ve learned a little bit of multiple languages to answer the phone in a foreign language. It absolutely fucks with the scammer on the other end because they are expecting an English speaker.
I mostly ignore calls from unknown numbers, but if I ever answer any I do something similar, but I use gibberish.
“Hello sir, I’m calling to see if you are aware of the latest energy deals in your area?”
I respond with something like: ‘Ha felth malak nakufi parament, cheeshan bah farkone.’
I then get very animatedly exasperated with them if they can’t understand me.
‘BISHAN TA FALAF TOOSH? MAIR PUNAN TA FALAS!!! EDGEKA, EDGEKA MALA!!!’
I never end the call, always keep going until they do, which is often pretty quickly these days unfortunately, because I’ve started to kind of enjoy playing with them.
Occasionally if it’s clearly a scam call rather than a spam call and I have time, I’ll actually pretend to play along dumbly to see how long I can keep them on the line. All time record is 49 minutes during the pandemic lockdown (I was bored). The guy finally caught on and released a barrage of expletives and wished me death. It was awesome!
I’ve learned a little bit of multiple languages to answer the phone in a foreign language. It absolutely fucks with the scammer on the other end because they are expecting an English speaker.
I mostly ignore calls from unknown numbers, but if I ever answer any I do something similar, but I use gibberish.
“Hello sir, I’m calling to see if you are aware of the latest energy deals in your area?”
I respond with something like: ‘Ha felth malak nakufi parament, cheeshan bah farkone.’
I then get very animatedly exasperated with them if they can’t understand me.
‘BISHAN TA FALAF TOOSH? MAIR PUNAN TA FALAS!!! EDGEKA, EDGEKA MALA!!!’
I never end the call, always keep going until they do, which is often pretty quickly these days unfortunately, because I’ve started to kind of enjoy playing with them.
Occasionally if it’s clearly a scam call rather than a spam call and I have time, I’ll actually pretend to play along dumbly to see how long I can keep them on the line. All time record is 49 minutes during the pandemic lockdown (I was bored). The guy finally caught on and released a barrage of expletives and wished me death. It was awesome!