Been using BobRTC for a couple weeks now. Quite entertaining - and addictive!
My goals for the past 20 years of doing this (only when receiving an inbound call on my home number) has always been to see how long I can keep them on the line and waste their time.
I continued this strategy with BobRTC until one day I kept getting cursed out and hung up on. After about 50 calls I noticed they put the phone to voicemail. After another 50 calls of one-word voicemails left I noticed the number went to fast busy.
And then something clicked for me. If I tie up one scammer for 60 minutes that’s great - but there still are 10 simultaneous calls getting through of people they are scamming.
But if I call, say a few choice swear words, hang up and do it again, I can single handedly shut down an entire phone number within 15-20 minutes thereby stopping countless numbers of people from dialing in and getting scammed. I think this is a far better usage of my time.
I always go back to the same number in an hour or so to see if they have gone live again. Sometimes they do - most of the time they don’t.
Also, I always verify that the number is a scammer. I play along for the first few minutes. If they answer IRS, or SSA, or CRA, or any kind of Refund number then they are automatically a scam. For tech support scams I tell them that I have a pop up and my screen is locked and if they start the Windows-R crap then it’s on.
Thanks again for this forum and these topics!
It is not a bad tactic. Considering that some scammers are paid to talk to scambaiters. This also combats indefinite holding.