News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by frereubu on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @04:03AM (#22746675)
A friend of mine used to actively enjoy doing this. Most of the calls he got were of the "we hear you've had an accident" variety, and he would start with a generic story about something like a car accident. The story would slowly get more and more bizarre until he's eventually telling them a story like how he hit a lorry full of miniature circus animals, with loads of tiny tigers and giraffes bouncing off his windscreen. He'd see how deep he could get them into the story before they realise they'd been had.
Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by notahacker on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @08:35AM (#22747942)
If it was actually a real person calling me about the accident, I'd love to respond with a furious "no it's YOUR fault' and try to convince them I'd literally just had an accident answering the phone whilst driving.

The time I told the robocall bot that this was very worrying because I was on my way to a driving test was actually true though. :D

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by gouggoug on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @11:15AM (#22749508)
I did something similar to this a while ago, but the scam was happening via text messages.

I spent a full weekend texting back and forth with the scammer.

Although I never went as far as your lorry of circus animals, I did give _many_ hints to him that he was being played with.

Now, the more interesting part is that I was particularly fed with scammers and wanted to see if I could out scam one, which I did.

On the Monday after that weekend, I managed to get my scammers to provide me with his bank account username and password.

Once I got this information, I checked that they were correct credentials and stopped all and every contact. I also did nothing with it as I didn't want to myself be on the wrong side of the law, nor did I want to mess too much with a scammer and get myself in trouble.

Re:FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by ... by amelius on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @06:59AM (#22747465)
You can find lots of similar stories here:

https://www.419eater.com/