Comment by pwython | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pwython | Hacker News Reader

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> "How is this possible ...? Why are you waisting my time??"

That's actually not so bad. I got a different, more hilarious response when a scammer realized I was stringing him along. Which I recorded.

I received a call just last Thursday from a professionally recorded American sounding female voice saying it was my credit card company. "Nothing was wrong with my account" but there was an opportunity to reduce my interest rate on EITHER my "MasterCard" OR "Visa." I knew this was going to be fun so I played along, pressed 1, and got connected to a guy from India. He began by asking for my credit card number to verify my account.

I started recording half way through, hoping to keep him on longer but failed. Here's the short clip from when he realized I was giving him random credit card numbers (NSFW language):

https://instaud.io/Niz

>I received a call just last Thursday from a professionally recorded American sounding female voice saying it was my credit card company.

I get those too. Also ones that say they are from Mariott Hotel or something. They always use local phone numbers, so I always pick up :(

But I hang up right away anyway.

Super annoying, I've been getting many of the Marriott calls from a local number (408) lately. Not sure what I can do besides not pick up unknown local calls.

> I received a call just last Thursday from a professionally recorded American sounding female voice saying it was my credit card company. "Nothing was wrong with my account" but there was an opportunity to reduce my interest rate on EITHER my "MasterCard" OR "Visa."

I've gotten phone calls where the recording introduced itself with "Hi, this is the credit card holder rewards center for Visa Mastercard."

Can they be any more obvious they're a scam?

And then there's the generic "Hello, this is Rachel from Cardmember Services". Or "Cardholder Services" or whatever name they're using at the moment (it keeps changing names as the feds keep going after them).

Sometimes you think it's stupidity, but sometimes from their side the clever scammers use it as a filter.

You obviously know it doesn't make sense, so you hang up and don't waste their time. But xyz down the road doesn't, which means they are both not as informed and far more likely to fall for the scam.

I wonder why he claimed he was from Afghanistan.

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