[bleepblop]

I once got a spoofed call from the number 666-2012. They told me I was going to hell with an obviously modulated voice. I just replied, "Finally!!" The person on the other end didn't know how to react to that. This was probably around 2009ish? After that time though, random calls were never fun like that.

They became predatory from then on out. I tried to play around at first, messing with them and such. Then it became relentless and the blocking never seemed to work. Then I just switched to letting random numbers go to VM. That seemed to have cut off about 50% of robocalls over time. Then eventually I got a pixel phone. Just the call screening alone is worth it. I may get 1 or 2 random numbers calling me a month now. And I usually don't even know they called unless I look at my call log.

I am happy that trend is starting to be picked up by other phone makers. Good on the FCC for clamping down on this stuff. It has been a long term problem and there is still a lot more of these people out there. I hope they learned a lot and can utilize this knowledge in the future to shut more people down.

[Arrath]

> After that time though, random calls were never fun like that.

My aging father loves to play with the scammers any chance he gets. One day he got the classic "Grandpa! Oh thank god you answered, I've been arrested in Vegas and I need bail money or terrible things are going to happen!"

After a few beats of shocked silence he launches into "BILLY?!?!?! The family has been trying to find you since your mom ran off with you 15 years ago! Where is she? Where have you been? Are you well? We just want you to come back home! We've had a PI looking for you for over a decade. Give me the address of the jail and I'll send our lawyer to pick you up."

Usually they're not equipped to deal with such a plot twist and just hang up.

[tiltowait]

I really enjoyed messing with the "Microsoft tech support" calls I would frequently get. In addition to keeping them on hold for half an hour "while my computer turned on" (aka I made and ate breakfast), I liked to try to follow their directions on wholly inappropriate hardware and seeing how they responded. After telling one guy that "chrome" wasn't a recognized command, he asked me what was on my screen and got very excited when I replied, "READY."

Alas, my old Commodore 64 proved scam-proof.

(As an aside, I remain amazed by the scammers' patience.)

[pixl97]

Kitboga on youtube is a great channel if you want to watch scammers get strung along for hours while he pretends to be a confused old man while actively getting the services used by the scammers cancelled.