I was baiting a Paypal scammer this morning and we got disconnected. Seconds later, I got a call back from a different number and I assumed it was them but it was actually a potential victim who was responding to the scammer’s email. Once I figured out they were a victim, I warned them off and we hung up. This happened 2 more times where potential victims got through to my number and I was able to warn them off - they were so thankful, it was super exciting and rewarding. This lasted around 5 minutes until the scammers must have figured it out and fixed their call routing. I only wish it had lasted longer. Has this ever happened to anyone else??
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A few of us were given the info to call center’s voip and we intercepted their calls for a few days till someone from a different site outed us and ruined it.
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The scammer had quite obviously spoofed your personal number hence you get the calls they are returning from missed calls.
Any scam with an ivr menu to “press 1 or 2 etc to speak to a representative/agent” is most certainly using spoofed numbers and cannot be called back.
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hmm, the people I spoke with said they had received texts or emails and were calling the number themselves, didn’t sound like they were calling back a missed call. But I could be mistaken.
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Scammers spoofed your number (which is dumb for these scams) and probably have them a callback number. Maybe the victims didn’t understand and instead called the spoofed number back, leading to you instead. It’s a good thing you told the victims about the scam when they called back. Sweet revenge!!
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Missed this comment. Then there might be chances the scammers could have inputted the wrong number in their script?
Bit of an update to this. One of the victims I tried to help is a scambaiter I follow (and came THIS close to recognizing) and she captured our call on a live stream Twitch
It starts around 3h 8m 30s in case the link doesn’t jump properly.
IF she’d fessed up, I’d have wanted to tell her how much I enjoy her content and how helpful I think it is. But more likely I would have said something awkward… it was a strange moment.
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Well, it’s not unusual to come across scambaiters and esp when you took control of a scammer’s phone system. DVR accidentally came across and had a short, sweet conversation with Jim who thought he was calling scammers when DVR had taken over a phone system of scammers.
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