I work for a large multinational retailer. My coworker answers the phone to a caller with a foreign accent.

Coworker: “Hello, [Retailer]. This is [Coworker].”

Caller: “Hello. I am from the Internet provider. I am calling because your Internet is slow.”

Coworker: “Okay.”

Caller: “Are you the only user on your connection?”

Coworker: “Yes.”

Caller: “Yes, I can see that.”

Coworker: “You know you’ve called [Retailer], right?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Coworker: “You know they’re a huge company, right?”

Caller: “Yes.”

Coworker: “Do you want me to put you on with the owner?”

The caller hung up. We joked that they were going to ask us to pay them in iTunes gift cards, which is actually something that we stock.

I manage security for an aeronautic electronics plant. My position is at the front visitor’s desk where I answer the main phone line. I take a call from an obvious scammer.

Caller: “This is the Better Business Bureau. We have a complaint against your business, so put me through to the owner, now!”

Me: “Oh? Well, you called the [Local] sub-division of [Corporation], owned by the international corporation [Parent Company]. He would probably be in the business offices in either Newark, Milwaukee, our new Mexican office, Tel Aviv, or Los Angeles. Would you like me to find those numbers for you?”

Caller: *Click*

This story is part of the Phone Scam Payback roundup!

Read the next story!

Read the roundup!

I have a landline phone which came with my apartment. I exclusively use my cellphone for all business, so all calls on the landline are scams.

I answer the phone one day.

Me: “Hello.”

Scammer #1: “Hi, I am [Scammer #1] from Microsoft and I am calling about your computer.”

I’m pretty sure his name is fake. I try to suppress my glee at this scam as they are my favorite to mess with.

Me: “Oh, dear, what is wrong?”

Scammer #1: “We are receiving signals from your computer about [some made-up issue that I don’t care to remember].”

Me: “Oh, give me a second to log into my PC. It will take me a second.”

He’s probably thinking he has an easy mark. 

Scammer #1: “Sure, take your time.”

I mute my phone, log in to YouTube, and open my anti-scammer video. Then, I unmute the phone. As the scammer waits, I play a video of dial-up modem sounds.

Normally, that is where the story ends, but you probably noticed the “#1” in the scammer’s name.

The next day, the phone rings again.

Me: “Hello.”

This scammer has a different voice but gives the same name.

Scammer #2: “Hi, this is [Scammer #2] calling from Microsoft.”

Me: “Really, we are doing this again? I would have thought that after what I did yesterday I would be on your do-not-call list.” *Hangs up*

Let’s see if they call back tomorrow.

My fiancee has just received a call from a scammer calling about “a car accident she recently had.” She doesn’t own a car or even a UK driving license, so she passes her phone to me. I resolve to waste as much of this person’s time as possible.

Scammer: “Hello, I understand you were in a car accident recently.”

Me: “Hi there. How are you?”

Scammer: “I am fine, thank you. Can you tell me when this accident happened?”

Me: “This happened on the first of January, 2020.”

Scammer: “And can you tell me what happened?”

Me: “Well, there I was, driving down runway twenty-seven left at Heathrow Airport in my Hawker Hurricane when a Boeing 747 appeared out of nowhere. So I swerved to my right onto runway twenty-seven right, only for my Avro Manchester to be run over by a Boeing 737 coming in to land.”

Scammer: “Okay, and did you suffer any injuries?”

Me: “Yes! I was killed.”

Scammer: “You were? How can you be talking to me now?”

Me: “Oh, yes, I was killed. But I got better.”

He hung up.

This story is part of the Phone Scam Payback roundup!

Read the next story!

Read the roundup!

One day in the office my two coworkers:

Me: “We’re going to be alone with no managers today. I have an idea for how to celebrate!”

We would put on an eight-hour loop of the cantina music from Star Wars to see how long it will take for one of us to crack. We pause the music only when one of us has to answer a phone call.

At one point, I receive a phone call. After pausing the music and answering, I realise very quickly that this is a scammer. Usually, I just hang up; however, this time I have a devious thought. I put my phone up to the speakers and blast the cantina music at them. They quickly hang up.

Oh, and we lasted five hours before one of my coworkers cracked and begged for the music to be turned off.

This story is part of the Phone Scam Payback roundup!

Read the next story!

Read the roundup!

This story is part of the Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup!

Read the next Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup story!

Read the Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup!