Getting a few scam calls, or more than a few? That appears to be life today, but we have a few tips to throw them off.
It seems as if scammers won’t get the message that we don’t want their attempts. We don’t want the dodgy calls, we don’t want the attempts, and yet they keep on happening. Every. Damn. Day.
Day in, day out, the same old voodoo follows us about, and there’s very little that can be done to dissuade or prevent the calls in the first place.
You know the drill. Pick one up and you’ll hear:
- “Hi, I’m calling from “
- “This is calling from Amazon about an excess charge”
- “Hello there sir, this is calling about your “
Unfortunately, security software can’t prevent these nuisance calls and you’re left to fend for yourself. Telco programs such as Telstra’s Cleaner Pipes are trying to prevent the likes of these things, but many still get through. Many, many still work.
So what can you do? Work out who’s calling and cut them off in the process.
Tactics to use with scam calls
We’re big believers in practicing what we preach, and so over the past few months, we’ve been actively trying some things out with scam calls. They happen daily at the moment, so we clearly have some time in the trenches trying to get them to hang up on us.
Working out whether a scam caller is calling you in the first place often starts with the phone number it’s coming from, and can typically be tracked to specific times of day.
While text scams are often sent in the early hours of the morning, we’ve found scam calls occur just after lunch between midday and three, as well as between five and seven. In short, times you might be available on a lunch break or on the way home. Convenience matters, it seems.
That’s not to say that every call you get during these times will be a scam, but that some definitely are, particularly the ones coming from random locations, such as a call a city you don’t normally associate with. In Australia, this technology journalist seems to get them through call centres leaving Toowoomba and Brisbane, but your mileage may vary.
The kicker is often how the call sounds: pick up the phone call and wait for the short silence before the call actually clicks over in its digital line. The muffled digital call centre behind the voice of who’s talking to you, signalling that, yep, you’re connected to a call centre. You probably know what we’re talking about.
At this point, it’s worth trying one of the following tactics, which we’ve used several times to cut scam calls off.
Tell them this call is being recorded
Something we’ve tried several times, this one is logical: tell them the call is being recorded for quality and assurance purposes, much like any other call centre would normally do it.
If that doesn’t throw them off the scent, add the following line: “we’re also going to be submitting this call to the ACCC’s Scamwatch program following the termination of this call. Is that okay?”
That’s worked for us in the past.
It’s worth pointing out that with changes to the iPhone in iOS 18, you may actually soon be able to do just that: record a scammer’s call all too easily and send it to someone. Call recording is coming to iOS, and while it will tell the other end of the call that they’re being recorded, that might be enough to force a scammer’s hand to click hang up.
Ask them “does this really work?” repeatedly
We’ve done this a few times, and sometimes we even get an answer.
When we pick up a scam call and say “seriously, does this really work?”, sometimes they’ll say “yes” before hanging up. Sometimes we’ll even elicit a rude or abusive response. It happens. We wore our adult pants that day, and the opinion of a scammer isn’t really that vital for our regular navigation of life.
Just be aware: while this approach works, it can leave some scammers unnerved to the point of being rude.
Say “I’m going to stop you there: I know this is a scam
This one seems to really bother scammers, too and there’s little wonder as to why: it often forces them to deal with something confrontational.
You know they’re calling as part of a scam, so you’re putting up a defense. That can force yet more abusive behaviour, but it can also get scammers to hang up fast.
Be honest: ask if they’re just trying to sell you something
You can also try an approach of honesty, which also works in some instances.
With several scam calls, we’ve employed a tactic of outright asking whether the caller was trying to sell us something.
Call centres have scripts, and typically they try to stick to scripts. Asking them whether they’re trying to sell you something might be in the script, but it also might not, and so throwing them on the back foot and forcing them to clamber for the right words might just leave you in the ideal place to get honesty.
And if you don’t believe them, you can always just hang up.
Alternatively, just hang up
Hanging up is the most logical solution, and quite frankly one that will get the best results.
Scammers rely on urgency to get people to fall for their cons, and baiting scammers is risky at the best of times. On the other hand, hanging up is definite, and they’ll likely move on quickly.
