I keep an old pay-as-you-go mobile phone at home which I use to maintain a social media tool and for banking, because my bank, like most, sells telephone numbers to marketing lists for profit because they’re scum. Nobody that I care for uses that number, so I know that whenever it rings, the caller is a salesperson or a scammer.

My phone rings and, out of boredom, I pick up and answer in a very frail, old person’s voice.

Me: “Helloooooo… [Fake First and Surname] speaking.”

Scammer: “Good day, Mr. [Fake Surname], this is John Smith from the Internal Revenue Service. Were you aware that you have a significant amount of unpaid taxes?”

Me: “Pardon me… Who did you want to talk to? I’m not sure that they’re here.”

Scammer: “I wanted to talk to you, Mr. [Fake Surname], about your unpaid taxes. Now, really, sir, you need to sort this out or you could go to prison! You’re in very serious trouble.”

Me: “Oh, no, no… There’s—” *shifty voice* “—no Mr. [Fake Surname] here. You must have the wrong number.”

Scammer: “Sir, you answered the phone with your name. This is childish; you are definitely you. Now, this is a serious matter and you need to address it.”

Me: *In a harsh voice* “Well, you got me, you b*****d. You found me out! Well, you’ll never take me alive! COME GET ME, YOU PIGS! COME GET ME! FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMM!”

Scammer: “Sir, sir, stop shouting at me! We’re coming to get you! You’re going to jail! This call is being recorded and will be used as evidence against you! NOW, BEHAVE AND SETTLE YOUR ACCOUNTS, OR ELSE!”

Me: “I’m armed! I AM ARMED AND DANGEROUS! YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!!”

This goes on for a while until, finally, the scammer hangs up. With a raw throat, I put down the phone with a happy sigh, only to hear a wheezing noise behind me.

Wife: “What the actual f*** was that about?”

The scammer never called back. Not that it matters. I’m not allowed to answer the phone anymore.

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I have lost a bet to my friend, and as punishment, I have to do a dare. He found a sweatshirt online that reads “Graduate of Yaoi University” and tells me I have to go to the mall while wearing it and walk around for one hour.

While we’re wandering the mall, we stop in the food court for drinks. The lady behind us in line notices my shirt and asks where Yaoi University is.

Me: *Pauses* “Japan?”

Lady: “Oh, that must be so exciting. Did you enjoy your time there?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Lady: “What did you study?”

I’m desperately trying to keep a straight face.

Me: “Art, ma’am.”

Lady: “How fun.”

She talked for a bit about how she wished she had traveled more when she was younger.

Once we had gotten our drinks and left the area, my friends burst into uncontrollable laughter. I was so embarrassed, and I really hope she didn’t Google that “university.”

I work for a large organisation in the UK. We have about 2,000 staff with individual phone numbers; as such, we have been allocated a batch of phone numbers. After the area code, each number has the same first two digits. Locals know this, but our phone numbers otherwise look identical to any local landline. Consequently, we still get the same scam calls about changing utility providers, etc.

In my forty-person, open-plan office we all have consecutive phone numbers. I am staying late in the office one evening before a late meeting. There is no point going home, so I’m watching movies and doing some admin. Then, a scammer calls my desk phone. I answer with my name and normal spiel about the organisation and explain that he has called an office and I have no control over our utilities, etc. He hangs up. Then, the next phone rings… and I decide to have some fun.

I can answer any phone from my desk, so I give the same spiel again and hang up. Phone number three rings, and so on. I give the same spiel in the same pleasant voice every time and make an internal bet as to whether I can get him to give up before he calls every phone in the office.

The lightweight only makes it to phone twenty-three out of forty before giving up. I killed some time, wasted his time, and finally made a scammer give up!

Over the holiday weekend, my sister received a strange email claiming to be from the principal of her kids’ school. When she replied, thinking it might be about a project she was working on for the school, the reply was even odder. And the follow-up reply Monday morning was even stranger. She was telling me about it and we had just thought to check if it was the actual email the principal normally uses — it wasn’t — when the next email in the chain asked her to go buy five $100 gift cards, supposedly for the “Chairman” to give to parents at a special meeting he was stuck in.

So we decided to have fun.

First, my sister agreed to buy the cards, but she was more than happy to run the cards to the school.

When the stranger then claimed to be in a meeting elsewhere, she offered to take them there. He claimed there was no time; she would have to send pictures. She agreed and ignored him for half an hour.

When he demanded to know what was taking so long, she told him that there had been a power outage and all the registers were down. She’d have to find another store.

The second store was also affected by the outage.

At the third store, my sister was in a fender-bender when someone backed out into her and she had to wait for the police.

Finally, about an hour later, she got the cards. But her phone died — it actually did! — so she had to charge it for a bit.

While all this was going on, I was having fun. I know just a little bit of graphic design — just enough to take a picture of the back of a gift card, “scratch it,” and add my own text. It was obviously fake if you looked closely at it, but on a phone at first glance, it could pass.

My sister told him she was sending the first picture, expecting that he would get the message. We were shocked when, a few minutes later, he asked about the other four cards and we had to admit defeat and ghost him.

The code I had put on the card? 1D10T 3104558 — put the second part in a calculator and turn it upside down.

I work in a coffee shop. It is late at night. I was supposed to have gone home hours ago, and my coworker and I have been rushing around by ourselves all day on a busy Friday. So, I am very tired and feeling a little loopy when Yet Another Car pulls into our drive-thru. Deciding to mess with my coworker a bit, I press the inter-employees channel button on the headset and pretend to answer the drive-thru.

Me: “We’re sorry, [Store] is closed forever. Please go away and never come back.”

My coworker’s eyes grow huge, but he sees me laughing at him and we both crack up. Just then, though, the car in the drive-thru pulls forward.

Suddenly, I’m not so sure which button I pushed. I approach the window, worrying about being screamed at and cussed out, but… nothing. The driver says nothing about my antics, just calmly places an order, and it occurs to me that I must have taken too long to respond to the drive-thru so they decided to order at the window. Even so, I have sworn to never pull a stunt like that again.