Almost everyone is used to getting scam calls, scam texts, scam emails and so on.

Most people know they need to be careful – don’t click links in unsolicited emails, don’t trust someone on the phone just because they say they work for your bank or your Internet provider or the government etc.

And generally, people recognise and delete scam messages, emails etc. without wasting time on them.

However, for some people, getting scam calls is a real problem as they don’t want to be rude to the nice person on the phone telling them they have a problem with their computer and offering to help, for example.

When it’s someone on your doorstep telling you there is a roof tile is missing and needs to be fixed, it can be even more difficult to tell them to go away.

You have to recognise that these people will say anything and do anything to steal your money and they don’t care what hardship they may cause you.

They don’t scam people because they cannot afford food – it’s because they want to cheat you or are just unwilling to work for a living.

Trying to reason with these people is generally a complete waste of time – they have decided to spend their time lying, cheating and stealing from people and don’t care about the consequences to their victims. So anything you say will be meaningless to them.

Your basic approaches are:

A. Just delete the messages or put down the phone

B. On a phone call tell the caller you know it’s a scam and end the conversation. With emails and text messages just delete them as responding to these just means you get registered on scam sucker lists and will get even more messages

or

C. Play along and waste the scammer’s time. It won’t stop them permanently but does stop them temporarily as they cannot scam someone else while on the line to you.

Playing along can just mean continuing to listen to the caller and perhaps asking questions, but not doing anything they say and not giving them any information about yourself.

But you can go a stage further and waste their time using any approach you choose, for example some people have used these ideas:

1. Act really interested. Jill says “I just tell them to just wait for a minute while you answer the door, put your phone down and just forget about it”
2. Try to sell them something imaginary – B.B. says “I pick whatever is to hand – once it was old clothes so I tried to sell her on heritage pre-worn clothing and another time I had just made some cakes, so I tried to sell the scammer boxes of those. Not for real of course – just to waste their time”
3. Pretty much keep saying “can you hold on a second?” And then put them on hold for five minutes. Get back on, say a few words, let them start talking, then say “oh dear, can you hang on again? Be right back” (ignore them saying “no, you can’t”, just pretend you didn’t hear them).
4. William says that he tries to convert the caller to the Church of the Astounding Philistinism and goes into long meaningless sermons
5. Francine says she starts telling the caller a sob story – usually one from some weepy movie she’s recently watched.

Have fun and waste their time.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.