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When the callers who are obviously from South Asia tell me their name and it’s a very Western one like George Clooney or Abraham Lincoln, I tell them in my very Western accent that my name is Sanjay Bindar. That always makes them hesitate. I also tell them that the call is being recorded for training and legal purposes. Then I keep interrupting their spiel with questions, most of them unconnected with computers, such as asking if it’s snowing there and what they had for lunch. After I ask them several times why they think they were notified by my Windows computer, I tell them that I have a Max running the Amiga VIC-21 operating system and that I don’t even have an internet connection. They don’t have a reply in their script for any of those possibilities and they get very confused.

After doing the above, it’s usually a month or more before they try again. When I used to just hang up on them, I would get several calls every day.

If they’re going to try to scam me, I’m going to mess with their heads and have some fun with it.

Another thing I do sometimes is tell them I’m going to put them on hold for just a moment while I turn off the TV, then I set the phone down and walk away. One time, the guy stayed on the line for nearly 15 minutes yelling “HELLO?” from time to time before he gave up. Most telemarketers and scammers have a quota to meet and if you waste their time, they won’t meet their target. Isn’t that too bad? 🙂