[hot_gril]

There are simpler and more effective ways to waste spammers' time. First of all, I can't remember the last time I've gotten email spam that expected a response. On the other hand, phone spam, which is much more disruptive, is usually trying to screen me briefly then funnel me to a scammer.

So I pick up spam calls, press 1 immediately, then put the phone back in my pocket. This usually connects it to a real person who hears ambient noise, thinking I'm nearby. Usually I waste like 60sec of their time for 2sec of my time. It's hard for them to protect against this because no matter what, they need some victims to talk to the real person, unless they develop a very smart AI. But a relatively simple bot with a list of likely scam numbers could automate the fake victim's side.

A colleague was dealing with more advanced scammers who had already made some progress with his unaware mother. Their scam was unique in that it required calling them back. He managed to collect all the phone numbers they were using, then he put up fake Craigslist ads for free couches... and you can guess the rest.

[brutusborn]

I tried a similar approach but it resulted in me being spammed way more frequently. I assume pressing 1 flags your number as "likely to respond" and the database is then sold to other scammers. Also, collecting numbers doesn't work because all the spam calls I receive are from spoofed mobile numbers which change each time. The craigslist trick just punishes some unsuspecting person, not the scammer.

[hot_gril]

Yes, it probably adds you to their lists. Somehow, after doing this for years, I'm probably only getting one spam call each day, maybe because my carrier did something to cut down on them.

The Craigslist trick worked because of a unique situation. They were using real numbers because their scam relied on being called back. He did call manually to make sure.