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Never before has it been so unsafe to answer a call from an unknown number. The worldwide pandemic has made phone scammers and robocalls more desperate and proactive. They target the most vulnerable of us, all hit by the financial and emotional burdens brought by an unprecedented crisis. Three out of 4 Americans said they were targeted by phone scammers over the past year, reported this survey.

In addition to staying alert at all times when your phone rings, some people are arming themselves with humor and see it as a sort of entertainment. Like the comedian Joe Heenan, who recently tweeted, probably sarcastically, how much he “loves spam calls.”

“I pretend I'm an old Scottish woman desperate to pay them. My record's an hour,” Joe wrote in a post which went viral with 39.3K likes. More people joined the thread to share their own tips and tricks on dealing with scammers, which are honestly quite funny.

That doesn’t mean, though, that phone scams should be viewed lightheartedly. Whenever you’re unsure about the caller, you’re likely to be much safer not answering it than regretting getting into a robocall bonanza.

Phone scams and robocalls show no signs of slowing down, with more than 4 billion robocalls targeting phones across the US in January. According to YouMail, an Irvine, CA-based developer of visual voicemail and robocall-blocking software, there was a 3.7% increase over the month of December.

And while most of us have run into scammers both on the phone and online, it’s not always entirely clear to us what we should do when we get one. So to find out, Bored Panda reached out to Alex Quilici, a CEO at YouMail who shared a handful of useful advice.

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scarlettofhydraisland avatar
ScarlettofHydraIsland
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I’ve been know to quote nothing but Rammstein lyrics at them. Kept one guy for almost an hour cause he kept trying to google translate them 😂

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Eevi
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm speaking finnish and they usually hung up after the first word.

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Lillukka79
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same, and if not I add the hard of hearing and keep yelling mitä, mä en ymmärrä.

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Easily Excitable Panda
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I get Spanish-language calls, I say in the most redneck accent possible: "Me siento mucho. No hablas enspanol." That translates to "I sit down a lot. You don't speak Spanish."

deson avatar
Deson
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Time for me to brush up on my German then or fake it. Either way works.

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Son of Philosoraptor
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I answer "Da!" so if it's a scammer I can just continue in a crappy Russian accent

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Shinomi Chan
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I haven't answered a call like that, if I ever do I'll just pretend to be one of those lonely people who act like their best friend despite literally just meeting them

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Jane Moore
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I speak in French - they get so mad at me - the one I liked the best waswhen the scammer siadwhay are you notspeakign in English since you live in Englad - I live inWales

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Lindy Mac
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Priceless comment. Thank you for the best laugh I've had all week!

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“People should not answer calls from unknown numbers, and let them roll to voicemail—so that they can see what the call was all about from the message that was left,” Alex said. He also explained that harmful phone calls are often imposter scams—“for example, someone pretending to be the IRS and telling you that you owe money that needs to be settled right away. These scams take away billions of dollars from people each year.”

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When it comes to robocalls, Alex said that they, in fact, have dropped since the pandemic started. It’s “because call centers are closed—and the whole point of a robocall is usually for you to press 1 and talk to someone (or call back).” But at this point “they are now fully back to levels before the pandemic as call centers have generally reopened,” he added.

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Cleo Carter
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I’m a little confused. I saw some other examples talking about post accident scammers. Is that a thing?

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For anyone who’s worrying about keeping themselves safe from suspicious calls, Alex suggests “getting a robocall-blocking app like YouMail so that the unwanted calls are filtered (and your ringer is protected).” The second step would be to make sure you “don’t answer the unknown calls that might get through—let them roll to voicemail.”

“If you have YouMail, we can automatically examine the voicemail that’s left and let you know if it’s harmful (a scam or spam vs. something real),” Alex explained. Moreover, he warned everyone to make sure you “don’t just call back numbers that call you—go to the web site of whoever the caller claims to be (e.g., Chase bank) and call a number you find there.”

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Bored Panda also talked to Mike Ferris, the head of communications at Hiya, a Seattle-based company that sells caller profile information to identify incoming calls and block suggested unwanted ones. Mike said that the most common thing that people do when they receive a call from an unknown number is not pick up.

“In Hiya’s recent State of the Call report, they analyzed more than 150 billion calls made on the Hiya network in 2020 and found that a staggering 94% of unknown calls went unanswered. And that’s because most people think that unknown calls might be fraud.”

“But as a result of not answering these unknown calls, people miss important calls,” Mike said and added that “sometimes calls from doctors, banks, and delivery people are unidentified, so opting to not answer these calls can cause real problems—both for the caller and the recipient.”

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Mike said that for these reasons, instead of ignoring unknown callers, a better option is to take advantage of an intelligent call protection and caller identification service. “Hiya blocks fraud calls, flags nuisance calls, and provides caller identity so that people know who’s calling.”

It turns out that “this significantly reduces the risk of falling victim to a fraud call and also gives people more information to decide whether or not to pick up a call.”

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Jane Dorothy Warner
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I am very old, but I have a young voice (luckily I kept something of my youth) and one guy ended up proposing to me because I sounded so nice and kind. Aww...

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LesAnimaux
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I usually hum an annoying song while I 'boot up my computer'. Several times. Last time I sang Baby Shark until they hung up.

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Lorelai Purvis
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"i want to talk to you about the accident you've been in" "yes, blue killed me in shields" "wait not that one the other one" "oh that one wasn't an accident i meant to shoot pink" *hangs up*

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