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Comment by michaelwilson | Hacker News Reader

I've actually asked scammers ("Amazon" or "Apple" representatives who are calling me to help me with a "problem" with my account) this question:

"So, tell me, do you go home to your Mom and say "Hey, I robbed 6 people today! Aren't you proud?"

It usually doesn't go well.

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I figure that wouldn't do anything, so when I have the energy to even pick up the phone for these assholes, I usually just fuck with them. My favorite is the scam about renewing your car's warranty, because I don't own a car and never have. So I get them on the line and say, "Oh, no, my warranty is about to expire? Which car are you calling about?" And they pause, confused. "Well, I have two cars, which one is about to expire?" They always respond with, "The most recent purchase, sir." And then I go, "Well, I bought them at around the same time many years ago, I don't remember exactly which one was more recent. If you're calling about the warranty, surely you know the make and model, right?" That's about when they hang up.

One time I got a scam call trying to make me freak out by saying someone bought a $1,000 iPhone on my Amazon account and I needed to work with them to take care of the fraud. I just said, "Oh, no, I bought that! There's no fraud, nothing to worry about!" There was a very long (and amusing) pause, and then the click of disconnection.

> So I get them on the line and say, "Oh, no, my warranty is about to expire? Which car are you calling about?" And they pause, confused.

I'm surprised by that. Every piece of car warranty junk mail I've ever gotten had the exact, correct make and model of my car. I'm pretty sure there must be some database that sells that info at scale.

Even if there's such a database, I'd be surprised if I'm in it, considering that like I said, I've never owned a car :D

I did once spend a month arguing with a repeated spam callers who rotated their voip numbers around the globe about just how I knew it was a scam, it also didn’t go well… But they did eventually stop calling! So I’ll count that as a small victory.

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