News

<p>Is it even possible to troll a scammer <em>too hard</em>?! This is the ultimate philosophical question being thrown around the internet after a man&#39;s recent confession on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ce8a0c/aita_for_repeatedly_calling_back_phone_scammers/" target="_blank">Am I The Asshole subreddit</a>.</p><h2>The whole game of cat and mouse began when OP received a call from a scammer claiming his social security number was compromised.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;AITA for repeatedly calling back phone scammers attempting to get my social security number?&quot;</p> </blockquote><figure class="image"><div class="image-container"><img alt="" onload="(__markFirstPostVisible || function(){})();" src="https://www.redditstatic.com/desktop2x/img/renderTimingPixel.png" /></div></figure><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;Not a throwaway because this is petty enough that it doesn&rsquo;t really matter in the grand scheme of things.&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;I received a phone call on my cell phone yesterday from someone claiming to be from the Social Security office: it was a recorded message saying to call them back at the number they called from because my social security number was at risk. I knew immediately that this was a scam, but since you can&rsquo;t really stop these calls (they usually scramble their number, so blocking the number essentially does nothing: it was not the case this time) I decided to call back and have some fun.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>Rather than merely blocking the number, OP decided to call the scammer back and have a bit of fun with the situation.</h2><p>When OP gave the scammer an obviously fake social security number ending in the letters &quot;FU&quot; he promptly received an earful from the scammer.</p><blockquote> <p>&quot;I called the number and an Indian gentleman answered the phone, and requested my name and social security number. I told him my name was Mike Rotch (thanks Simpsons) and started rattling off a fake SSN, and inserted &ldquo;FU&rdquo; as the last two digits just to make it clear I wasn&rsquo;t falling for their &ldquo;brilliant&rdquo; scam. The nice Indian gentleman responded with &ldquo;fuck you motherfucker&rdquo; and hung up.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>After his first successful call back, OP decided to up the ante on his trolling, and spent his commute home hands-free calling the scammer a total of 40-50 times.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;Now if this is where I ended things, it would clearly be a validation post: it didn&rsquo;t end here. I was thinking about how these guys could be getting actual SSNs from elderly or more gullible people, and decided to keep the ruse going. Luckily for me, they called right before I left work for the day and I had a 50ish minute commute home. I am able to essentially redial the number hands free through my car, so for my entire commute home, I kept calling them back: roughly 40-50 times in total.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>Throughout the course of his calls, OP talked to 5-7 different men, all of whom became increasingly exasperated with his persistence.</h2><p> </p><blockquote> <p>&quot;I found out that there were about 5-7 different Indian gentlemen all near each other at an airport-like setting (could hear background noises). They became increasingly irritated, but I kept calling. From my point of view, if they were busy dealing with me, they weren&rsquo;t getting other calls (I would sometimes get a recorded message saying &ldquo;the person you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time&rdquo;).</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>Eventually, OP decided to stop his tirade of calls, at which point one of the scammers called him yet again.</h2><p>This only restarted the cycle of trolling, which reached a climax when OP said he&#39;d only stop calling if they wired him $2,000.</p><blockquote> <p>I stopped after my commute home, but lo and behold I get another call from them today. I decided to pick up the joke again and the first person to answer started with &ldquo;did I talk to you yesterday?&rdquo; but I said no and gave him a new boring name (Mark Smith). He quickly discovered it was me, and I began repeat calling again: roughly 50 times today. They threatened to freeze my bank accounts, then told me if I paid them $1,000 that they wouldn&rsquo;t call me anymore: I told them I&rsquo;d stop calling if they gave me $2,000.</p> </blockquote><h2>When OP shared the series of calls with a friend, the friend claimed he took things too far, to which OP replied: can one even go too far with a scammer?!</h2><blockquote> <p>I was telling a friend about it and he said IATA because I took it too far. From my point of view, they&rsquo;re attempting to scam people: if I have the time, why not disrupt their scheme a bit?</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;TL;DR - scammers called for my SSN, I called them back bothering them roughly 100 times in two days. AITA?&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Mrs_Peanutbutter/">Mrs_Peanutbutter</a> believes you can never scam a scammer too hard.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA you can never take it too far with scammers. These people destroy lives. I&rsquo;ll look the other way, do what you will.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HeadFullOfStardust/">HeadFullOfStardust</a> thinks if anything, OP should clog their phone lines even more.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA. There&rsquo;s no such thing as taking it too far with those fucking scammers. Keep calling them. Every minute you spend clogging their phone lines is a minute they can&rsquo;t try to scam someone.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/sessamekesh/">sessamekesh</a> shared an interesting fact about scammers, and encouraged OP on his mission.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA - is there an acronym for &quot;you&#39;re a saint?&quot; This doesn&#39;t fit under the category of cold-call sales people just doing their annoying jobs, this is people looking to steal lots of money from vulnerable people. Thank you for your service in making things hard for those asshats :-)&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;It is likely that by wasting their time, you are being more than a slight nuisance to them. I read a paper awhile back titled &quot;<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WhyFromNigeria.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?</a>&quot; Interesting read, the gist is that time is valuable enough to scammers that they&#39;re willing to appear as obvious scams just to prevent well-informed people (who won&#39;t fall from their scam) from wasting any of their actual people&#39;s time. Keep doing that, I think I might just pick up the habit on my 45 minute commute as well!&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HIJKElemenohpee/">HIJKElemenohpee</a> believes the scammers deserve far, far worse than OP has dealt out.</h2><p> </p><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA. If you&#39;re bothering them, good. You&#39;re right, the longer you keep them on the phone the less people they can call. They make their living exploiting elderly and gullible people and they deserve much more than to be bothered.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Searchingesook/">Searchingesook</a> wants in on the trolling.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA, there&rsquo;s no such thing as too far with scammers...also ima stay at home mom with nothing better to do so can i have the number? I agree that they scam people who are vulnerable and need to be stopped.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>After receiving mostly affirmation, OP clarified that they genuinely respect the opinion of their friend who thought they went too far, which is why they made the post in the first place.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;Edit: Early indication is I may not be TA. This wasn&rsquo;t intended to be a validation post, I was more wondering if the excessiveness of my calling was a determining factor or not - it appears it is not a factor. Going to bed now, but will check in to see if the comments swing in the other direction overnight. Lastly, my friend is a really non confrontational guy, so his questioning of me being an a-hole had everything to do with the excessiveness of my calling. I value his opinion, and that&rsquo;s why I created this post.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;Edit 2: a lot of people requested the number. The number is 1-844-xxx-xxxx. I just tried calling and got their automated message. They didn&rsquo;t try calling me until after 10AM CST yesterday, and it was closer to 3:30PM CST on Monday. The best I can tell, they work an overnight shift somewhere. Note that a few people pointed out it could be a pay per call number, so proceed with caution. Edit 3: removed the number per mod request. Apologies for posting it.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>For awhile, the number for the scammers was up in the post edits, but due to requests from a moderator, OP has now redacted it.</h2><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Guy scams a scammer back by clogging his phone lines non-stop for days.

Is it even possible to troll a scammer too hard?! This is the ultimate philosophical question being thrown around the internet after a man&#39;s recent confession on the Am I The Asshole subreddit.The whole game of cat and mouse began when OP received a call from a scammer claiming his social security number was compromised. &quot;AITA for repeatedly calling back phone scammers attempting to get my social security number?&quot;  &quot;Not a throwaway because this is petty enough that it doesn&rsquo;t really matter in the grand scheme of things.&quot;  &quot;I received a phone call on my cell phone yesterday from someone claiming to be from the Social Security office: it was a recorded message saying to call them back at the number they called from because my social security number was at risk. I knew immediately that this was a scam, but since you can&rsquo;t really stop these calls (they usually scramble their number, so blocking the number essentially does nothing: it was not the case this time) I decided to call back and have some fun.&quot; Rather than merely blocking the number, OP decided to call the scammer back and have a bit of fun with the situation.When OP gave the scammer an obviously fake social security number ending in the letters &quot;FU&quot; he promptly received an earful from the scammer. &quot;I called the number and an Indian gentleman answered the phone, and requested my name and social security number. I told him my name was Mike Rotch (thanks Simpsons) and started rattling off a fake SSN, and inserted &ldquo;FU&rdquo; as the last two digits just to make it clear I wasn&rsquo;t falling for their &ldquo;brilliant&rdquo; scam. The nice Indian gentleman responded with &ldquo;fuck you motherfucker&rdquo; and hung up.&quot; After his first successful call back, OP decided to up the ante on his trolling, and spent his commute home hands-free calling the scammer a total of 40-50 times. &quot;Now if this is where I ended things, it would clearly be a validation post: it didn&rsquo;t end here. I was thinking about how these guys could be getting actual SSNs from elderly or more gullible people, and decided to keep the ruse going. Luckily for me, they called right before I left work for the day and I had a 50ish minute commute home. I am able to essentially redial the number hands free through my car, so for my entire commute home, I kept calling them back: roughly 40-50 times in total.&quot; Throughout the course of his calls, OP talked to 5-7 different men, all of whom became increasingly exasperated with his persistence.  &quot;I found out that there were about 5-7 different Indian gentlemen all near each other at an airport-like setting (could hear background noises). They became increasingly irritated, but I kept calling. From my point of view, if they were busy dealing with me, they weren&rsquo;t getting other calls (I would sometimes get a recorded message saying &ldquo;the person you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time&rdquo;). Eventually, OP decided to stop his tirade of calls, at which point one of the scammers called him yet again.This only restarted the cycle of trolling, which reached a climax when OP said he&#39;d only stop calling if they wired him $2,000. I stopped after my commute home, but lo and behold I get another call from them today. I decided to pick up the joke again and the first person to answer started with &ldquo;did I talk to you yesterday?&rdquo; but I said no and gave him a new boring name (Mark Smith). He quickly discovered it was me, and I began repeat calling again: roughly 50 times today. They threatened to freeze my bank accounts, then told me if I paid them $1,000 that they wouldn&rsquo;t call me anymore: I told them I&rsquo;d stop calling if they gave me $2,000. When OP shared the series of calls with a friend, the friend claimed he took things too far, to which OP replied: can one even go too far with a scammer?! I was telling a friend about it and he said IATA because I took it too far. From my point of view, they&rsquo;re attempting to scam people: if I have the time, why not disrupt their scheme a bit?  &quot;TL;DR - scammers called for my SSN, I called them back bothering them roughly 100 times in two days. AITA?&quot; Mrs_Peanutbutter believes you can never scam a scammer too hard. &quot;NTA you can never take it too far with scammers. These people destroy lives. I&rsquo;ll look the other way, do what you will.&quot; HeadFullOfStardust thinks if anything, OP should clog their phone lines even more. &quot;NTA. There&rsquo;s no such thing as taking it too far with those fucking scammers. Keep calling them. Every minute you spend clogging their phone lines is a minute they can&rsquo;t try to scam someone.&quot; sessamekesh shared an interesting fact about scammers, and encouraged OP on his mission. &quot;NTA - is there an acronym for &quot;you&#39;re a saint?&quot; This doesn&#39;t fit under the category of cold-call sales people just doing their annoying jobs, this is people looking to steal lots of money from vulnerable people. Thank you for your service in making things hard for those asshats :-)&quot;  &quot;It is likely that by wasting their time, you are being more than a slight nuisance to them. I read a paper awhile back titled &quot;Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?&quot; Interesting read, the gist is that time is valuable enough to scammers that they&#39;re willing to appear as obvious scams just to prevent well-informed people (who won&#39;t fall from their scam) from wasting any of their actual people&#39;s time. Keep doing that, I think I might just pick up the habit on my 45 minute commute as well!&quot; HIJKElemenohpee believes the scammers deserve far, far worse than OP has dealt out.  &quot;NTA. If you&#39;re bothering them, good. You&#39;re right, the longer you keep them on the phone the less people they can call. They make their living exploiting elderly and gullible people and they deserve much more than to be bothered.&quot; Searchingesook wants in on the trolling. &quot;NTA, there&rsquo;s no such thing as too far with scammers...also ima stay at home mom with nothing better to do so can i have the number? I agree that they scam people who are vulnerable and need to be stopped.&quot; After receiving mostly affirmation, OP clarified that they genuinely respect the opinion of their friend who thought they went too far, which is why they made the post in the first place. &quot;Edit: Early indication is I may not be TA. This wasn&rsquo;t intended to be a validation post, I was more wondering if the excessiveness of my calling was a determining factor or not - it appears it is not a factor. Going to bed now, but will check in to see if the comments swing in the other direction overnight. Lastly, my friend is a really non confrontational guy, so his questioning of me being an a-hole had everything to do with the excessiveness of my calling. I value his opinion, and that&rsquo;s why I created this post.&quot;  &quot;Edit 2: a lot of people requested the number. The number is 1-844-xxx-xxxx. I just tried calling and got their automated message. They didn&rsquo;t try calling me until after 10AM CST yesterday, and it was closer to 3:30PM CST on Monday. The best I can tell, they work an overnight shift somewhere. Note that a few people pointed out it could be a pay per call number, so proceed with caution. Edit 3: removed the number per mod request. Apologies for posting it.&quot; For awhile, the number for the scammers was up in the post edits, but due to requests from a moderator, OP has now redacted it.

Is it even possible to troll a scammer too hard?!