We have been getting daily calls from marketers that show up on the caller ID as “Spam risk”. We have hung up, ignored them and shouted into the phone so far. Today I answered the phone and began slowly speaking in my best sinister voice, “I know who you are. I have a very special set of skills developed from years of dealing with people like you…” That’s as far as I got when the line went dead.
It’s way more likely he considered you a non-victim. You obviously knew he was a spammer.
I’m also guessing it’s not the first time they heard someone use a line like that.
I’ve had halfway decent luck with incessantly interrupting them, like over and over and over until you can get them to stop reading the script and realize that you’re trying to tell them something urgent, then I say “sir, sir…sir, this is the [random city] police department, where is the emergency”. That’s almost always followed up by them going back to the script but I’ll stop them again and say “sir, I need your address so I can sent police” or “are you safe? is someone threatening you? are you able to give me your address? No? I have it from the caller ID, I’m going to send police and EMS to your location” and I just keep doing it until they hang up. I had one today who’s voice started cracking, I think I made her genuinely nervous when I finally convinced her that she didn’t call [my store], she called the police. She then said 'well that’s the number I have for [my store] so I said ‘then maybe you should delete it since it’s wrong’. Here’s hoping she doesn’t just call back tomorrow.
Call it impersonating the police, but I don’t think the caller is going to do anything about it.
Also, I’ve had a small amount of success in getting them to hang up by telling them they’re on a recorded line (not in conjunction with the police thing). The claim that I’m recording them (and actually the claim that I’m a 911 dispatcher) is further bolstered by my call zapper beeping in the background.
But I only do that here and there and generally only to spammers that have called way too many times already. My call zapper hangs up on most of them, but it’s still annoying because it still rings once or twice and often times someone will pick it up before the zapper can zap it. Checking my caller ID, the one I talked to this morning has called 8 times in the past week or so.
Also, I’ve started taking the email addresses of “semi-legit”* spammers and signing up for as many mailing lists as I can find. I understand the Trump and Scientology ones are particularly hard to get removed from. This morning I had the bright idea to use those email address as contact info for some random car dealerships around the country. I set up spam accounts when I buy cars just so I don’t have to deal with their spam.
*by “semi-legit” I’m talking about people that aren’t outright scammers. These are just random businesses that want to do our bookkeeping or sell us lists of leads or whatever, but they I get junk from them on a daily basis.
If gmail could permanently delete them automatically instead of just moving them to the trash, that would be great.
I recently answered a spam call by mistake and tried evangelizing a little: “Do you know how low unemployment is right now? It would be so easy for you to get a better job that doesn’t make people hate you!” I doubt it worked, but hope springs eternal.
Occasionally I get spam calls on my work phone. They’re basically the only people who ever call my work phone, so I always answer with, “Good morning/afternoon, you’ve contacted a federal office. This call is being recorded…” I have more, but they always, always hang up before I finish the second sentence. Most of the time I don’t even get past the word “federal.” They hang up so fast and never call back. So I’ve started answering my cell phone the same way with similar results.
I made a spammer swear! 
As soon as I answered the phone, they said “This is Microsoft Support - you have a problem with your computer.”
I replied “Microsoft Support - how can I help you?”
Spammer “Sir, this is Microsoft Support - you have a problem with your computer.”
Me “Microsoft Support - how can I help you?”
Spammer “Sir, you don’t understand. This is Microsoft Support - you have a problem with your computer.”
Me “No, I’m Microsoft Support - how can I help you?”
Spammer “swears” and hangs up.
Stringing spammers along can be fun, but I just don’t have the time or patience for it. I did once, though, when the phone rang and I was in the kitchen just waiting for something to simmer or whatever and had some time. It was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten most of the details or what they were selling. But I remember a few key points.
One was that after I strung them along for a while and expressed eager interest, it turned out that whatever they were selling required a credit check, so they asked me my birth date so they could run a credit check. I said I didn’t know. “You don’t know your birth date?” I said I’d probably just forgotten, but I could go look it up.
After a few more rounds of this sort of stuff, they asked “Could we please speak to your wife?” hoping to connect with someone sane. I said that wouldn’t be possible, because “she went out the door this morning with a suitcase, and I doubt I’ll ever see the bitch again”.
I was really surprised at how long they persisted in the face of lunatic responses, but this was the point at which they said “We’ll call you back later. Bye.” 
Once in the late 90s I had been roped into a MLM scheme by someone who paid my way into it. It was selling long distance service to people (this was back in the day when that was something you had to worry about) but really, the main scheme was about recruiting other people who could recruit other people and so on, and in theory somebody is selling long distance service.
Anyway, a woman from AT&T had called to ask me about my long distance carrier, and I immediately asked her who she was using for long distance. She was taken aback, and then I went into my spiel about how I could save her money on long distance. She then said she wasn’t able to divulge personal info or make purchases on one of her sales calls, and I told her that was funny, neither could I. She gave me a confused reply along the lines of, “Sorry for wasting your time, sir,” and hung up.
I was disappointed because I had hoped I would actually make a sale.
Well hot damn, that worked better than I thought it would. I literally read that post 15 minutes ago and then got a call from the same number that’s been calling constantly. Usually I just let the call blocker take care of it, but they’ve been relentless. Instead of my “this is the police, where is your emergency” which is sort of hit or miss, I answered “United States Federal Building, this call is being recorded, how can I help you today?” and all I heard was ‘wrong number [click]’
Now I’m interested to see if it’s a fluke and they keep calling or if it gets them to take my number out of their system.
A recent exchange with a scammer:
SCAMMER (with Indian accent): Hello I’m Sam from Microsoft and we have detected a problem with your modem.
ME: With my motor?
SCAMMER: No sir, your modem.
ME: The motor of my truck is running fine.
SCAMMER: Sir, I’m talking about the modem that is connected to your router.
ME: But I finished driving my route with no problem.
SCAMMER: The problem is with your router.
ME: I had no problem completing my route because the motor of my truck ran fine.
SCAMMER (now sounding a bit exasperated). I want to help you with a problem with your Wi-fi
ME: My wife?
SCAMMER. No your Wi-fi
ME: My wife is doing well thank you. We’re about ready to go out to dinner now that I have finished my route because the motor in my truck is running fine.
SCAMMER: %%$$%%35%%%@@@5%%!!!
Scammer also made various threats to harm me but after I pointed out he was on the other side of the planet and could do nothing he hung up.
Reposted from an earlier thread:
My favorite was a guy with a strong Indian/Pakistani accent asking about my laptop, but it sounded very close to “lap dog” with his accent.
“My what?”
“Your laptop”
“My lapdog?”
“No, your laptop.”
“I don’t have a lapdog!”
“No, not your lapdog, your laptop!”
“I don’t have a lapdog! I don’t have any dog! Why do you think I have a dog??!”
“No, your computer, not your lapdog!”
“But why do you think I even have a lapdog??!”
Repeated for several minutes until he finally gave up and hung up.
After all these years, if I’m feeling spunky I may pick up the phone on another spammer call again just for fun. I guess I’ll have to play it by ear, but one of the most common spammer calls is to offer “duct cleaning services” or some other home remediation. I’ll happily agree to their service. I will give as my address the local police station, and my name will be “Aiden DeCopper”.
I had a hangover one day at work, in a very small open office. We had a culture of openness which often led to fairly humorous conversations.
I got a call. It was a place offering short-term loans.
Being hungover - but in one of those inexplicably happy hangovers - I chose to respond. Performative theatre, I suppose.
"Oh my god, thank you. I desperately need this loan! My family won’t lend me money anymore, after the bank stopped my credit. They say I need to be responsible, I dont know why.
My house payments are in arrears, so thank you, thank you for the loan! How much can I get?
When I get it I can help fund my boyfriends HIV treatment, though I am too scared to be tested.
But yes, please give me the loan!"
I got put onto a supervisor and told very firmly that I did not qualify.
They never contacted me again. Probably something about a credit risk? I dunno.
- i dont have a boyfriend, and I have had HIV tests a few times, but this was back before the ARV treatments were widespread in my country
One asked for my social security number. I gave him a series of random numbers. When he read it back to confirm, I told him must have heard me wrong, and then gave him a completely different set of random numbers. Every time he’d try to confirm what I’d just told him, I’d get exasperated (“No! You’re not listening!) and then offer some new series of numbers. Eventually he just hung up.
Or, if they call to offer some service, I’ll get real chipper and say something like “That sounds great! I’ll just need a credit card to get started. Will you be using Visa or Mastercard?” Then I start demanding the card number and expiration date, with an explanation that I can’t continue to assist them until I’ve been paid.
A scammer called my mom’s landline and asked for my stepfather. My mom, in a teary voice, sobbed “He’s not here anymore and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Scammer: “Uh…sorry…bye.”
Stepfather was sitting in a chair laughing.
I noticed that my spammer call volume dropped when I started hitting on the caller.
“What are you wearing” works for me.
When BiL would get a call like that, he’d reply, in his most somber voice, “Oh, you haven’t heard, he’s no longer with us.” He believed that it would get his phone # removed from the list for future calls, too.
At my work we get an incredible amount of calls from people that want our credit card processing business. A friend of mine (that also owns a business), ‘agrees’ to meet with them at his ‘office’, for which he’ll make up an address. I used to ‘agree’ to meet with them as well, but I’d tell them they’d have to meet with the person who handles those things but he only works at night and usually meets with sales people around 3:30 in the morning. No one has ever taken me up on that offer. I wish they would. I’d love to see them on my cameras at 3:30 am banging on the door and trying to call us.
Here’s one that not only amused me, but did actually succeed. I used to get A LOT of calls from random Time Warner Cable sales people that want to come down and do a ‘site survey’ and see about saving us some money. Every time they’d call, I’d tell them I already have TWC and they need to stop calling. Finally I told one of them that if they don’t stop calling, I’m going to let them waste their time coming down here and talking to me for a half hour. The next time they called was a few days later. And true to my word, I set up an appointment for them to do a ‘site survey’ and see what they can offer me and if they can beat my current rates. I was actually kinda excited to see how it would play out. Well, the guy showed up, somewhat miffed. Turns out he figured out we already used TWC a few minutes before he got here, and he was apparently with his supervisor that day too. When I told him what I did and why I did it, that seemed to be the end of it. I don’t think I got any more cold calls from them since then.
What I get now is a new “area manager” emailing or calling me every few months because they want to talk to me and see how well our plan is working out and if they can save us any money.
Turns out that’s a bunch of BS too. They’re just trying to sell fiber, which is way, way more expensive. One guy actually got mad at me when I explained to him that he was supposed to be trying to save me money, not sell me a $600/mo service. He even told me he doesn’t even have the authority to do anything about what I’m paying. So now I ignore those calls/emails as well.