>get a couple of dozen calls over the next few days.

For me, it's been years. I've irritated a lot of scammers. I've also a fake bd of 01/23/45 for most of my online life so I fit right into their target group.

> Next time you get a call, waste their time a little pretending to be slow and then do something to make them angry such as explain that you've been wasting their time and don't approve of their business methods. They'll put you on some uber-mark list as retaliation, and you'll get a couple of dozen calls over the next few days.

Iunno, I do this every time and they usually hang up on me quickly.

If they uber-marked me, they'll just waste even more time. But alas it hasn't happened.

Great, next step is to get this going for maximum impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DkF88BkpeE

It is very low effort to just put the phone down and waste their time until they realise. They are usually so deep into their script that they will talk for minutes.

I was on my way out the door one morning, taking my dog to the vet to have a lump removed.

I was in a bad place.

The phone rang. I knew I shouldn't pick it up, but I was in a bad place.

It was "microsoft", and they needed immediate payment to avoid legal action.

I am a little ashamed of what happened next but I dumped every curse word I could think upon that indian guy. It had nothing to do with him really, but I really let him have it.

Honestly, I feel bad looking back at it.

He may have been wrong, but I was wronger.

He is trying to survive like everyone else.. who the hell am I to sit in the comfy first world and judge?

Nothing to be ashamed of. The person on the other end of the phone was a criminal attempting to defraud you. You could have done much worse than just cursing them out.

> He is trying to survive like everyone else.. who the hell am I to sit in the comfy first world and judge?

This line of reasoning ultimately leads to the conclusion that morals only apply in situations where it’s comfortable and convenient to apply them. Perhaps any particular scammer has been the victim of their own set of injustices (or just as likely, perhaps not), but that in no way excuses their victimisation of others. They’re adults too. Not some poor lowly Indians who had no choice but to defraud the vulnerable.

> He is trying to survive like everyone else.. who the hell am I to sit in the comfy first world and judge?

He doesn't know you from a senile person living in poverty. They'll steal your money regardless of who you are. There's no moral justification for that. They are evil.

hitler is evil, they're just criminals.

It's probably happened often enough that they're desensitized to it.

No, you're not wrong to defend yourself and to come back at someone who's being hostile to you

You're not trying to scam people, he is.