scammers programme on Wednesday night

these all made me laugh ,i used to get quite a lot of these scammers till i came up with `,as soon as they started talking ,i said ,`oh is that you son ,well you forgot to bring my pension back also where is my shopping ? i will give you another list,i then proceed to give them a lovely shopping list ,,But they hang up on me !!,how sad is that ,and they never did bring me the shopping ,,mean things

This has been entertaining! I'm actually looking forward now to my next call so I can try out your strategy.

I get regularly on my emails I am due to renew my TVlicence this month and pay it online definitely wrong date and month .The Amazon goods one too can be a good fake

I thought it was a new programme, but when watching it realised most of it has been on before, but just updated with some lockdown additions.

Millie22. You reminded me of what happened many years ago, when we changed our landline number. The phone rang, and a lady asked if she was speaking to the family planning clinic. I almost died laughing, because I had five children.
It turned out, like yours, to be two very similar numbers.

OMG how you have cheered me up. Realise I haven't laughed like this for a while. Thankyou to all you all . We need more of these posts. So so good

I had one call a few years back trying to sell a pre paid funeral plan for £3K which guaranteed your chosen funeral package arrangements at a fixed price, no matter how far ahead in the future. He was very plausible, spoke about rising cost of funerals
above annual inflation rates, which meant any cash savings for this purpose could be whittled away, and about the burdens that could be created for family. I can see vulnerable elderly people could easily fall for this. Although the money paid into the 'plan' is ( allegedly) invested in a trust, the salesman was unable to explain how the costs of all the funeral plans sold could be guaranteed, as it would be unlikely that the trust fund would remain solvent to meet all of its obligations in the future if, as stated, the cost of all the future funerals is rising well above above rate of inflation or ordinary investment returns especially taking into accounts the costs of employing the salesmen in the first place.

I start speaking Gaelic, confuses the hell out of them.

My daughter answered the phone and proceeded to 'sell ' a garden shed. Even asking the caller if they could collect it. We were in hysterics and the caller completely confused.

i always tell the scammers i am locked in the house and my carer makes all the decisions and then ask in a very timid little voice.....would you be my friend, i can tell you where i stay and we can talk at the letterbox....lol. if my son is visiting he always says,,mummy is out and i am not supposed to answer the phone..lol xx

Thank you everyone for your very funny stories. Goodness knows we can do with cheering up. I think I have tried most of the suggestions from the Windows one to "Have you got a mother? Is she proud of having a son who is a criminal?"

However, while it is easy to have fun winding up these crooks I think we have to be aware that some older people, perhaps on their own and not so confident as others, are genuinely frightened by, for example, the prospect of having their internet or phone cut off within 24 hours.

I once had a scammer, claiming to be from my bank's security department and with the usual instructions that as there had been a suspicious transaction, in Hong Kong, on my account I should immediately transfer my balance to a new account. He was so persistent, ringing throughout the evening, that in the end I just took the phone off the hook. The only thing that slightly concerned me was that he knew the balance of my account to within a few pounds! A lucky guess? I contacted my bank the next day just to confirm that everything was in order, but it does make you wonder where he got his information from.

Sometimes I just say nothing and see how long it takes them to hang up. Other times I play “ games”. My favourite is pretending to go and get my husband....and in the meantime, my “ child” comes to the phone and starts talking gibberish. Great fun!?. I haven’t had any calls for ages though, certainly not this year.

This thread reminded me of my mum who loved getting calls for conservatories. She was very enthusiastic about getting one then dropped into the conversation that she lived 6 floors up. ?

Not heard of it recently but about 10 years ago there were companies who cold called folk trying to persuade them to sell their house. A quick sale but well below market value. My dear old Dad who was almost 90 got the call one day. When asked if he’d ever considered selling his house he replied that he had indeed been thinking just that for some time.

The woman spent 15 mins quizzing him about how many bedrooms, type of heating etc. Then said to give him a price she would need to do a home visit and complete the contract.

Dad said he would be more than happy to sell the house to them even though it was considerably less than market value price. Then said “But this needs to be done very discreetly, the landlord will be raging when he finds out I’ve sold his house!

My now AC worked for a legitimate co. at 16, first job, phone-selling double glazing. A long time ago! Some of those 'jokes' were played, plus lots of swear words, and DC wondered why people were so nasty - 'all people have to do is say no thank you'. The few appointments that were made for a salesperson to visit resulted in a bonus so DC was overjoyed. Scammers are the dregs of humanity but the people on the phones are not the ones to blame. Some of them may even be tax-paying workers doing a pretty thankless job. Call blockers are really useful in reducing the volume of unwanted calls considerably.

I've had the 'been in an accident' call before, strung them along and said yes, I'd like to see about making a claim but before that I would need to check with my sergeant if it was OK to do that, as I'd been driving an unmarked police car at the time. The phone at the other end was put down very quickly, he he!

I have a format for dealing with the scammers as I just keep repeating the same one word ‘yes’ to everything, whether appropriate or not. They probably think I’m gaga and delete my details from their data base.
I strangely don’t hear from them again!

Simple we don’t answer any number we don’t recognise, I wouldn’t waste my breath on them, and for withheld if it’s anything important then they leave a message

I only have the odd one nowadays when my blocker doesn't function properly. When the caller asks for me, I simply say 'I am her career. Can I help? Gone.......

Love some of your responses to scammers. I don't get that many now but the odd one still gets through. I used to string them along then say things like "can you just hold for a moment, my baby needs feeding" and leave the phone for 10-20 minutes, come back, talk for 30 seconds on my baby's progress from bottle to weaning (I don't have a baby) then say sorry, visitors have just turned up etc...I rarely got second calls and remember one scammer that must've been on hold for over an hour...I started to feel sorry for him so left him 'on hold' again then held a conversation with 'the neighbour who just dropped in' and said something like 'I do hate these scammers - do you put them on hold, waste their time and run their phone bills up too?' - Surprisingly enough he eventually hung up on me, how rude!

I watched a programme a little while ago when some tech-savvy people would hack into the scammers and watch them on their own CCTV, focus on their monitors and ask them why they were Googling information etc...one took over their system completely and even recorded the manager meeting where they discussed the rules for the next scam they intended to use. Great that clever people spend their time to expose the cheats or make life hard for them.

The last one I had that used the 'problem with your internet' type scam I asked him if he would like to hold while I got my Internet specialist husband (I'm not married - my better half was a top net analyst for a large organisation for nearly 20 years) as he might be able to help them solve the problem as it must be at their end...another one who hung up on me and never called back. As I've got older I don't have as much patience - I'd like to still play games with them but admit I've sometimes been very rude after very little prompting...as soon as they say accident (I don't drive), internet problems, banking problems etc I resort to obscenities! I had one persistent caller for about 3 different scams - after the mouthful I blasted at him last time he hasn't called for about a year now - hopefully he's given up and not bothered to sell my number on.

Will probably watch or record that programme as often interesting.

Usually, I just lay the phone on its side without speaking and leave it engaged for an hour or so at their expense and inconvenience. If we all did that, all their phone lines would be tied up constantly! All my friends and family use my mobile number anyway.

Sometimes I like to string them along and tell them I don't even have a phone or that I ran into this stranger's house to answer this one as the door was left open or the house was on fire. I must remember the one about burying the body in the woods after the car accident, that's a good one. There ought to be a book about all these funny excuses.

I am not a Welsh speaker but know quite a lot of words due to my Welsh mother. I string them together for scam callers and they ask what language it is and then get another load of nonsense. I can actually say the LanfairPG place name in full and this usually does the trick.

I always ask each one why they don't get a proper job.

Time wasting questions, not eating ??

I wish I was quick enough to think of good time eating questions! I have had the car crash calls and learned that if I politely ask “Sorry, who was it you wanted to talk to?” They usually hang up. I have a friend who loves to wind them up and her best one was a call asking her to change her phone provider. She kept the call going as long as possible, then in a doddery old lady voice said “but I haven’t got a phone?” There was a long pause then they hung up