Scam Call

[carolegif]

After batting away all those normal irritating calls, I had one this afternoon with a recorded message saying that my online account had been used for illegal purposes!  I clicked off at that stage.  I am sure it was a scam call as if that was the case, the call would be a live one.  This must be a new approach.

[barry1010]

They just don't give up

[fraser]

just hag the phone up or tell then to f??k off i do and its works.

[Giggsie]

I've started now to tell them they are scammers and they don't like it one bit. Some of them have been quite nasty in their reply. 😂

[Dizmo]

barry1010: So true.

carolegif: Now that AI is more accessible to everyone, scammers are utilising it to try and draw in victims. There are some really convincing computer-generated voice recordings that sound like a real human is talking to you. Some of the larger scam organisations have the ability to listen to the response from the potential victim and then formulate a correct response (one that makes sense) – all this is done without any input from the scammer.

My advice, to anyone receiving these types of calls, if you don't want to just hang up on them (if you're not sure, the best thing to do is just hang up, rather than angering the scammer);

When they introduce themselves and ask, ‘How are you doing today?’, don’t reply to that question – I find that one a rather common question asked, after they’ve introduced themselves. I usually respond with anything from, “How’s the weather today?” to “That’s an interesting name”. If they don’t respond to your question, or they hang up, you know it’s a scammer, or just irritating spam – either way, it’s not wanted. Some AI systems will attempt to respond, however they often pick up on specific words, rather than full sentences (or they just don’t pick up on the sentence properly at all). Many a time I’ve said, “That’s an interesting name” and got a reply to a question I didn’t ask. Here’s an example of a response, after saying 'their' name was interesting: ‘Sure, my name is Brian Richardsons and I’m calling from Debt Finance Solutions and Home Improvements Agency”.

Another thing to be really cautious about, even in the UK, is SWATTING. Some scammers are now resorting to SWATTING victims, and even potential victims. What happens is, if a victim gives the scammer(s) their address (or the scammer inadvertently gets the victims address) and then refuse to go along with the scam (obviously they don’t know it’s a scam, otherwise they wouldn’t be giving their personal/private info to them), some scammers will call the police and make up a story about how a person, at *victims* address, is waving around a gun (something along those lines). Within minutes that victim could have AFO’s (Authorised Firearms Officers), using the big red key (enforcer) to enter their home, pointing Glock 17’s and MP5’s in their face. It doesn’t happen as often in the UK as it does in the US, for obvious reasons.

SWATTING has made life a little trickier for scambaiters to do their ‘job’. As a scambaiter myself, I often need to provide the scammer(s) with an address. More and more scammers are using Google Maps to check to make sure they are dealing with a potential victim and not a scambaiter. So, giving a non-existent address is out of the question and so is giving a real address, as there’s a risk that that person could be SWATTED.

It’s a battle that I don’t think will ever be won, sadly.