Got yet another scam call today. Usually I’ll just hang up but this time I decided to
waste the guy’s time.
Scammer: (Has Indian accent. Says that he is from “TV services” and then asks for my name)
Scammer: What is your first name, please?
Me: My first name is Terry, T - e - r - r- y
Scammer: Ok, and the last name?
Me: Boll, B - o - l - l
Scammer: Terry Boll, right?
Me: That’s right, I’m terrible.
Scammer: (hesitates a second or two) Why are you terrible?
Me: I’m TerryBoll because l like to waste scammer’s time.
Scammer: (Says nothing. There is a long pause before he hangs up)
Anyway, it occurred to me the reason that we get a lot of these call is because
English is a widely spoken langauge. Do people in non English speaking countries
get scam calls? How many scammers would know a language that is spoken in
only one or two countries such as Japanese, Swedish or Polish? If you live
in such a country does your langauge protect you from getting these scam calls?
I never get voice calls of any kind, legitimate or not, but I get lots of scam texts in French (most often) and German (less often), plus Luxembourgish (occasionally) and Dutch (rarely). Never English, interestingly.
I’m in the Uk and get a steady stream of scam calls.
If I have the time, I like to keep them on the line (to delay them phoning others.)
My favourite:
Scammer: Are you the home owner?
Me: Yes
Scammer: I’m calling from Microsoft about your computer.
Me: Yes, this is Microsoft Support.
Scammer: No, I’m Microsoft Support.
Me: Yes, this is Microsoft Support.
Scammer: No, I’m Microsoft Support.
Me: Yes, this is Microsoft Support.
Scammer swears and rings off.
Yup. Really common here. The initial kind of scam is called the オレオレ ore ore scam because scammers would call and say オレだ, It’s me. using the informal masculine form of I / me.
Scammers target the elderly of course (by just dialing zillions of numbers and seeing who falls for it).
I get a lot of phishing texts for undelivered packages, utility bills and WhatzApp saying my account is compromised and I need to verify the login credentials with the attached link.
Germany with 84 Mio people is big enough of a target to be bombarded with scam calls. They often come from Turkey, Russia or other Eastern European countries where many people speak the language, but also from inside the country. But my mom even once got a call from “Microsoft Support” from someone with the typical Indian accented English. She knows a bit English, but she didn’t fall for it.
Not quite on point for the OP’s narrow question. But very similar.
Here in the English-speaking US there are a lot of spam calls made in Chinese. They tend to target area codes with large Chinese populations, but all area codes get hit at least a little.
It seems the spammers are calling and impersonating some form of mainland Chinese police. Who then try to extort money from the Chinese expat living in the USA.
To directly tie this back to the OP … [US immigrants from mainland China] are a large enough target “market” to be attacked by spammers.
The fact your wife can translate such calls and they’re so numerous strongly suggests that your (and her) phone numbers are on some dark web list of phones known to belong to Chinese expats.
I’ve gotten a lot of spam calls on my cellphone in Chinese. (I assume Mandarin). I’m in Canada. I have zero connection with Chinese. The only possible connection is that we applied for visas for a tourist visit well over a decade ago. I’m also inclined to believe that this is simply random spam because there is a moderately high number of Chinese immigrants and students in Canada, so they call everyone.
I have no idea what’s being said. It is obviously a recording, a woman’s voice. Some online things I’ve read suggest the interpretation is that the caller is warning that the authorities - Canadian or Chinese - are after them and that they must do X or Y to avoid legal issues. Presumably, this involves money.
I don’t live in Quebec, and I have never gotten a French spam call.
I get a very much larger number of spam calls and texts compared to my wife, since her number is mixed in with regular land-line numbers allocated from the time when cell phones were rarer, and mine in in a block allocated to one of the cellular providers. Spam on the land-line has pretty much dropped to zero the last two years.
Typically if I get a call with no caller ID or from my buddy “Likely” (Call ID says “Likely Fraud”), then I answer and wait, say nothing. Almost always, it’s an autodialer and if no response, does not connect to the call center human. After 3 or 4 second it beeps twice and hangs up. Humans, a real call, will go “Hello? Hello?” (I found this out, the doctor’s office has a blocked ID.)
I don’t answer my phone unless I recognise the number. I occasionally get a scam voice message, but it’s rare. I assume that by never answering unrecognised numbers that means I don’t get on a “potential sucker list”?
This is exactly my strategy as well, and it seems to work. If you pick-up, they some how note it as there is a live person at the number, and then the number lives forever on the dark web.
If I did somehow mistakenly pick up a scammer call, I’d waste as much of their time as I could, so they have less time to bother others…
Me: Hello.
Scammer: Hello, this is Microsoft Support, may I speak with snowthx?
Me: One moment, please (put phone on mute, set phone down, walk away).
I suspected scammers work in any language where there is a big enough chance of snagging people, and comments here support that. It must work sometimes if they keep doing it.
I have a Chinese last name. I get a lot of spam texts in Chinese (I assume, it looks like Chinese but since I have zero Chinese language skills I’m not sure). I used to get spam calls in Chinese as well, until I learned years ago to let unknown numbers go to voicemail. I’ve always assumed that my name and number is in some database (funny, such a thing was common in olden days - it was called the White Pages) that got mined for Chinese sounding names.
I also get a lot of likely catfishing invitations on LinkedIn from what appear to be young Asian women (going by the profile picture). No pretense of working in a field remotely connected to mine. Ignore.
I wish there was an easy way to make the phone answer with a fax machine response. Maybe some day I’ll record a fax machine and make that the voicemail message. (I never use voicemail, I never set it up on my phone… but apparently there’s one there.)
There were plenty of scam calls in Taiwan. My father, when told he’d “won” a large sum of money, would annoy the scammers by promptly asking them to donate the money to such-and-such a charity for him.
Another time, a scammer called a friend’s mother and told her that her son had just been kidnapped and that ransom needed to be paid….when her son was in fact in the room right there with her.
(I never use voicemail, I never set it up on my phone… but apparently there’s one there.)