[ChristianBundy]

Have you heard of the "It's Lenny" bot?

https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/

It's meant to keep telemarketers on the phone and waste their time, but it sounds like someone was using something similar for international phone fraud.

[fisherjeff]

Great link, although Lenny has now wasted my time too.

[amingilani]

Similar and much more polished is the Jolly Roger Telephone Company: http://www.jollyrogertelco.com

[Humdeee]

Goldmine. I just listened to a call where Lenny put the telemarketer on hold for a 2nd time to quiet his ducks. It's amazing how getting telemarketers to repeat themselves for the fifth time to a bumbling old man really takes the optimism out of their voice.

[zeroer]

> Lenny put the telemarketer on hold for a 2nd time to quiet his ducks

That's all of them (if the marketer stays on long enough).

[CamperBob2]

This makes me want to create an Eliza implementation that's optimized to waste as much telemarketing time as possible. All that would be needed is a phone that lets you write your own telephony application and use it to answer calls.