Spam called my 69yr old mom all day until I got home from work, answered, and pressed 1 to connect to someone. They were saying that there was “suspicious activity on my iCloud account.” I don’t own any Apple products whatsoever. Gently asked the first guy to please remove my number from the call list. He said “No,” so I pushed further and told him I knew all about his scam. He tried to say “I can’t let you go until we diagnose the issue,” so I raised my voice and told him again to remove our number before hanging up on him.
Few minutes later I received another call, this time a woman, who I again politely asked to remove our number. She seemed confused and asked how she could do that, so I told her to speak with her 'manager' or whatever she needed to do, because I knew about the scam and didn't have time for their crap. She said "Okay, so you know about the scam? Do you know the golden rule? The caller [again, they called me and I pressed 1 to speak to someone] has no authority to ask us to remove the number." So I told her in no uncertain terms just what she could do with herself, reminded her I wanted my number removed, and hung up.
Next time they call, I'll be blasting an airhorn through the phone. I don't have a virtual machine or any real protection in order to scambait, so have fun y'all.
@knvolpe#132554 A lot of times we don’t bother with the number that appears on caller ID. It is “spoofed”, meaning it could belong to a legitimate business, or even an innocent individual who has nothing to do with their scam.
@jaymee#132558 Fantastic! So that means I just have to deal with them continuing to spam my family two or three times an hour, great. :') Do you have any recommendations less extreme than having to change our number to avoid this?
@darktroll87#132532 I observed most (not all) Apple scams are using Spoofed number typically belonging to some Apple location. Scammers do not realize most Apple stores are closed for the time being.
@drwat#132562 If it’s on the caller ID, consider it bogus. Only valid numbers are the ones they give you to call back on. Pretty much anything that asks for you to push a button to speak with someone is using a spoofed number.
You have two options. When you get the message, hang up. Enough times without being able to get through and your number will drop off their list. If you keep pressing 1 (or 2 if they have a 'remove' option) will just get you more calls. Second option is to mess with them. You don't have to have an apple device to pretend you do. Act like a total dumbass, ask a zillion questions including stuff that has nothing to do with what you are doing, make them repeat themselves over and over again because you can't understand them - basically whatever you can do to get them totally pissed off at you. If they start yelling stuff like "Listen to me!" and "Don't you understand English you idiot?", you are doing a good job! It won't stop them from calling, but it can be a world of fun just seeing how many buttons of theirs you can push until they snap :)
@knvolpe#132559 Otis has some solid advise above. And again, I learned the hard way that what appears on caller ID is spoofed. But I have a 3rd option. When they start their spiel, say excuse me, I just got this number, you probably want to reach the former owner. That’s how I found out that they’re using a list of sorts, because they mention my real name. So I say sorry, and hang up.
But truth be told, I kinda miss the "harassing" calls, because they did slow down considerably. It's Friday, and I've only had 2 Apple calls this week, and 1 yesterday from the "electric company" threatening to shut off my utilities within 45 minutes. And today, at 8:15 the phone rang, but I didn't pick it up.