officer gets scammer call

NewCreation435

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https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/08/29/scammer-call-police-captain-orig-acl.cnn

This police captian got a call from a scammer and posted it online to show people they should be careful with not giving out personal information.
I have had one or two calls like this where people threaten and sometimes they have variety of this tactic where they will pretend to be from microsoft windows or other things. The rule of thumb I use is that if I didn't call them and know who I am talking to i wouldn't give out personal information to anyone.

Have you gotten calls like this?
 

tango

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I used to get a lot of the scammers who called saying my computer had a virus. My wife would often have to leave the room because she was laughing so hard at my responses to them - I'd just string them along for as long as I could before they came to realise I'd been wasting their time. The goal was partly to waste as much of their time as I could and partly to leave them constantly second-guessing the situation if they encountered someone who really wasn't very good with computers, not knowing if they had a prospective victim on the hook or if they were dealing with someone else who just wanted to string things along for as long as they could.

Once I had a guy call me up and tell me about all the viruses on my computer. I told him I'd recently downloaded 20 gigabytes of hardcore porn and my computer hadn't quite been the same since, and asked if the two might be related. That obviously got him well into the mindset that he had a victim on hand, and I kept him talking for over half an hour before he figured out he wasn't going anywhere with me.

There's a brilliant recording somewhere of a guy who got a call from the IRS who apparently wanted him to settle his outstanding tax bill with Target gift cards so they could call off the police from coming to arrest him. He went through the motions of going into Target and making the purchase, and then asked the scammer what he should do with them all. The scammer wanted the codes from them, so he gave them a number that wasn't what the scammer expected. Then he dropped his bomb, and said he thought he was supposed to buy $3000 worth of Target gift bags. Of course from there he couldn't possibly afford to buy gift cards as well because he had maxed out his credit card, he had no idea what he was supposed to do with all these gift bags. After a bit of back-and-forth with the scammer he let on that he'd known it was a scam and told the scammer, using some fairly colorful language, that maybe he should do something else with his life.
 

Andrew

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I used to get a lot of the scammers who called saying my computer had a virus. My wife would often have to leave the room because she was laughing so hard at my responses to them - I'd just string them along for as long as I could before they came to realise I'd been wasting their time. The goal was partly to waste as much of their time as I could and partly to leave them constantly second-guessing the situation if they encountered someone who really wasn't very good with computers, not knowing if they had a prospective victim on the hook or if they were dealing with someone else who just wanted to string things along for as long as they could.

Once I had a guy call me up and tell me about all the viruses on my computer. I told him I'd recently downloaded 20 gigabytes of hardcore porn and my computer hadn't quite been the same since, and asked if the two might be related. That obviously got him well into the mindset that he had a victim on hand, and I kept him talking for over half an hour before he figured out he wasn't going anywhere with me.

There's a brilliant recording somewhere of a guy who got a call from the IRS who apparently wanted him to settle his outstanding tax bill with Target gift cards so they could call off the police from coming to arrest him. He went through the motions of going into Target and making the purchase, and then asked the scammer what he should do with them all. The scammer wanted the codes from them, so he gave them a number that wasn't what the scammer expected. Then he dropped his bomb, and said he thought he was supposed to buy $3000 worth of Target gift bags. Of course from there he couldn't possibly afford to buy gift cards as well because he had maxed out his credit card, he had no idea what he was supposed to do with all these gift bags. After a bit of back-and-forth with the scammer he let on that he'd known it was a scam and told the scammer, using some fairly colorful language, that maybe he should do something else with his life.
That's pretty funny lol
My cousin got a call from one of our arab neighbors who claimed to be the IRS, and she was leading him on she kept hinting to him "oh well i better pay up then then huh?, maybe we can settle this some other way if you know what I mean wink wink" ..."maybe we can meet up and you can take your turban off and let your hair down" he finally got the hint and hung up.
She's a real comedian but she doesnt mean to offend lol, she's just witty but she really wanted him to take a hint
 

ImaginaryDay2

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https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/08/29/scammer-call-police-captain-orig-acl.cnn

This police captian got a call from a scammer and posted it online to show people they should be careful with not giving out personal information.
I have had one or two calls like this where people threaten and sometimes they have variety of this tactic where they will pretend to be from microsoft windows or other things. The rule of thumb I use is that if I didn't call them and know who I am talking to i wouldn't give out personal information to anyone.

Have you gotten calls like this?

Sometimes when I've gotten these calls they'll ask for me, I'll tell them I'm not me, but "I'll get him" and then set the phone down. They're gone in a few minutes.
 

tango

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Sometimes when I've gotten these calls they'll ask for me, I'll tell them I'm not me, but "I'll get him" and then set the phone down. They're gone in a few minutes.

I have been known to tell people "I'm sorry, he died. Would you like to hold?"
 

NewCreation435

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We usually don't answer if we don't know the number of the person calling. Particularly if it is out of state number. Though I have noticed that now they can make it look like it is local when it is not
 

ImaginaryDay2

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We usually don't answer if we don't know the number of the person calling. Particularly if it is out of state number. Though I have noticed that now they can make it look like it is local when it is not

The local ones are interesting. We had a whole rash of calls in this area from IRS scammers and I got quite a few. I usually ignore them but one made the mistake of leaving voicemail. I wasn't in a really good mood that day and called the number back. Someone actually answered with a canned speech about a fake collections agency and he got an earful from me. :D
 

tango

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The local ones are interesting. We had a whole rash of calls in this area from IRS scammers and I got quite a few. I usually ignore them but one made the mistake of leaving voicemail. I wasn't in a really good mood that day and called the number back. Someone actually answered with a canned speech about a fake collections agency and he got an earful from me. :D

Not a great idea to call them back, it immediately verifies the number as being a valid one and so it will get sold on at a premium. It's like when you get a spam email that has a link to unsubscribe from the list, where the link might as well say "confirm this email address reaches a human".
 
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