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We received a call from someone claiming to be from ConEdison alerting us that a team was coming to shut off our power for non payment. (We are on automatic pay) She gave us number to call and if we had called it I am sure they would have asked for money. Instead, I got the name of the sender (fake) from my Verizon app and reported to their fraud department. He said both the number the call came from and the number we were asked to call and he said they were IP numbers which could have come from India for all he knew. Nothing to be done but warn people.

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One thing I'm always astonished about is all the people I read about in the news who seemingly didn't see anything odd about government agencies or legitimate companies asking for payment in gift cards or bit coin.
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And you know that you paid the bill. In the last couple of weeks my caller ID has said Spam in front of the name calling.
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I get a call at 9.30 AM every morning (oh the joys of retirement) from "Audrey who is a Medicare Disability Specialist, can you hear me?" {Designed to get you to say "yes"}.

For a couple of go-rounds I said things like "do you know that you're despicable" but I got bored. I just don't answer any more.
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I used to tell callers such as these that a more honest job would be cleaning toilets but I too tired of that.
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Riverdale, also have asked "does your mother know that you're doing this?".

I have a son who is an actor who has done telemarketing. But has never done stuff like this. There is honest work out there for folks with lovely voices, he tells me.
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We've all probably read about all the little games some people play in order to get back at scammers, it sounds amusing but I had calls seriously escalate after I asked a repeat caller who they were and why the H3LL they kept calling me (they responded with an FU).
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Maybe I’m just getting this off my chest— at my new job there’s a lady in her 70’s, very religious, very impressed with her own intellect, who is completely convinced that she’s married (because God said so) to a man in Nigeria, though he’s actually from Portugal, who she’s never met in person. She believes he has gotten her a passport so he can obtain a marriage license there. He’s supposed to have come here repeatedly but some outlandish event has prevented it each time (his daughter suddenly died, he had a heart attack while getting on the plane, there was a huge car wreck) She’s been on the phone with her bank several times because “they messed up her account” or PayPal did her wrong, or a perfectly good check was denied. Her granddaughter tried to tell her this was a scam and was apparently met with the threat to “cast a demon from her” The picture she has of him is what I would swear is a stock photo of a man in his 40’s. I really can’t decide if she really believes it’s all true, or if she’s so lonely she just needs it to be true. Either way, it’s really shown me both how vulnerable many older people are and how scum is taking full advantage
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Barb, I get those Monday morning calls as well, usually between 9 and 10 a.m.  More of them came the first 2 days of this week, but only 1 today.    I wonder what kind of schedules the programmers (?) set for the robocalls, i.e., whether they target some people in the morning and on certain days.

I'm also getting a lot of "do you want to sell your house at....(either my father's house or mine)"  I used to toy with them just to be annoying, and ask questions I knew they couldn't answer.

What is apparent is that people with foreign accents are making the initial calls.  It's not that often I get calls from someone who can carry on a conversation or even understands more English beyond "yes" or "no."  Then I toy with them and tell them I need a D & B report on their company.   They have no idea what I'm talking about.

HGTV really did a disservice by focusing so much on rehabbers and flippers.  But I've learned they also don't use the term.  They consider themselves "real estate investors."  Yeah, sure.
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This is really sad, that someone preys on an older person who apparently is lonely.  I read an article addressing another Nigerian scam that was caught by an FBI agent who was contacted, brought the Feds in and set kind of a "honey trap" for the scammer.   If I can find it, I'll post it here.
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I appreciate this post, Kathleen. The level of scams online are getting pretty sophisticated. I had to contact Canon about a printer problem a few years back. I looked up the number to customer service online and called them. I had no idea that a scam company could have good enough SEO that I found the scam number first, listed as Canon Customer Service, before the legit number. I called up the scammers and gave them access to my laptop, and I'm not sure what they did before I realized what was going on and shut things down.

I've received texts/emails message that say my Amazon/T-Mobile account details were changed, or an order was placed, and if I didn't authorize the changes then call/reply. They're preying on people's concerns about being scammed to scam them. Unreal. 😠
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I care for a little lady that lives in a retirement community and she gets scam calls at least once a week. She doesn't have a computer but she gets lottery scam calls and "Help Grandma I'm in trouble!" calls. She has me and her other caregivers take care of them for her and afterwards we always joke about how stupid they are to keep calling. My coworkers and I have done our best to educate her on how to spot a scammer and since her mind is still sharp as a tack at 92 she tells all her friends around the neighborhood about those calls so they can be on their guard, too. I also always report the incident to places like Facebook and such where a lot of older folks hang out online so they can warn their families, etc.
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If you guys want a good laugh go on YouTube and look up "Hackers versus Scammers" especially channels like Scambaiter and Kitboga. The latter messes with phone scammers and the ones that send those "Amazon refund" etc scams by using a voice changer to pretend to be an older person and its so funny how mad it makes them that they wasted so much time. Kitboga does it because his grandmother was scammed and it became personal after that. The main goal of those channels is to make it so the scammers are wasting their time with them instead of scamming more innocent people. They are doing God's work and providing high teir entertainment as a bonus. :)
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I've been thinking of reversing the control issue when a scammer calls, and saying something like "I have a great island off the Bahamas for sale.  I think you might be interested!"    Or maybe "I'm taking money and collecting funds to support (insert anything - our troops, refugees, homeless people and animals, or something ridiculous like eradicating dandelions from gardens); how much can YOU  contribute?" 

I might just try that with the next jerk who calls, but unfortunately most of the calls are robocalls.
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Another type of fraud call is the so-called medical calls, with someone who generally isn't a native English speaker pretending to be calling from Medicare, stating that he/she is calling about a back brace, diabetic supplies or whatever, followed by a "you DO have a (insert medical problem), don't you?"

Sometimes I'm tempted to stay on the line until the "if yes, press 1 now", then pretend I'm interested, ask for their EIN number and tell them it's so I can report them to the Feds and the IRS for investigation.  I wouldn't get the EIN number, but it might put some fear into the person calling.

However, many of these people are not native English speakers; they may be across the globe in some remote area, and the Federal government  might not even create fear for them,  but they ARE spoofing local area code numbers so that fraud would give the Feds grounds to go after them.
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I never answer the phone unless I know the caller!! Most large companies do NOT call you personally! Unpaid bills are mostly mailed not called by phone!!
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Just FYI, in my area, fraudsters are pretending to be calling from hospitals: I've gotten 2 of those so far.   Yesterday a spam caller pretended to be calling from Nationwide Insurance.   I call the legitimate entities when this happens and let them know their names are being fraudulently used.  

I see an opportunity for a class action lawsuit against the fraudsters, if and when they're identified, for illegitimate use of a incorporated names.
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