Scammer flips out: Trolling a scam caller from “BT”

Scam calls have become an unfortunate part of our daily lives. These deceptive calls, often masked as legitimate inquiries from reputable organizations, and aim to exploit unsuspecting individuals through various schemes.

They prey on the vulnerable and have been known to steal many £1,000’s

In 2017, I had a period of receiving scam calls from “BT” and decided I would see how far I could push them. It turns out you can have a lot of fun with these people and while you are wasting their time they aren’t scamming someone else.

The key was to get them on the hook so they felt they were making progress with a victim which would then bait them to invest time in me as usually they cotton on.

The bait

Many of these scams try to con their way in to getting remote access to your computer to provide some sort of service or fix and once they have access they try to steal your data, passwords, or perhaps just hold you to ransom.

Knowing this, giving them access to a computer would make them think they were well on their way to scamming me.

I wasn’t about to give them access to my real computer, so I set up a Virtual PC which I could let them take control of to give them the confidence they were moving forward and that I was susceptible.

For those who don’t know, a virtual PC is like any other computer, but it runs isolated in a software environment, so in theory you can have multiple computers on a single computer which is what I did.

Cat and mouse

From here I kept the scammer on the phone toying with him, disconnecting etc. after some considerable time they got wise to me and were very annoyed and lost his mind.

These people tend to work in call centres and like any other business they have bosses and targets, so when someone takes them on a merry dance they tend to get very upset, which is good.

I recorded the whole thing so you can hear my antics and “excellent” acting skills on YouTube.

A word of caution

While this was an amusing exercise, it serves as a reminder to always approach unexpected calls with caution, verify their legitimacy, and never trust unsolicited communications. If in doubt, hang up and call back on a number you cna trust.

Remember emails, websites, caller ID, etc. can easily be spoofed (faked) and many scammers may have already been able to obtain personal details about you such as name, date of birth, etc. to give them an air of authenticity.

And, while you can keep them on the phone and lead them on a merry dance to take up some of their time, please never , ever give them access to your computer. It won’t end well.

Oh, and don’t use BT, they are a rip off.