Phone Scammers Accidentally Call A Programmer, Regret It Immediately

a crime with this revenge? I know there are states that have laws concerning dialing a number repeatedly with intent to harass.

Anyway, I hope the IRA scammers complain to the police about this "harassment" and get themselves arrested instead!

I'm sure they'll take care of it!

of when my cousin robbed his dealer and his dealer called the cops--everybody goes to jail (Mario accent)!

where some potheads misplaced their weed and went to the police to borrow a drug dog to sniff it out.

Contacting the authorities would incriminate them for far worse crimes.

I wish we all had the knowledge to do this.

plenty of malicious uses for this too

My post pertains to scammers.

There are sites where people report scam numbers after they have reported it to the FCC. That's where he pulls the numbers from.

Here's a good starting point until Trump cuts the budget for this site: https://www.usa.gov/stop-scams-frauds

and post numbers here:
http://whocallsme.com/

Wherever the call originates, I think many of their phone systems have a way to copy your area code and display it. I have gotten phone calls from people in the area where I used to live who believe I've called them, and I've gotten scam calls from operations too sophisticated to be from the area where I previously resided.

I'm not sure how it all works, but I've stopped returning calls to those numbers that pop up with no voicemail.

someone from my contacts.

same with spoofed email addresses. It can make it harder to report, but it is doable.

Then it's knowable that the number isn't spoofed.

Our Treasurer was close to being taken in by a scam when they contacted us to inform us of what was happening. Not entirely sure how they knew, so that's a tad creepy. But it did save us about $4,000.

They send you a nicely worded, frightening letter.

We've been on the receiving end of both. Stupid IRS agent wanted to double tax our Railroad Retirement income.

Stupid scammer got laughed at and hung up on and then promptly blocked. As if that does any good any more. They just generate a new number and call back.

We were almost victim to the "Fake President Fraud."

ETA: Not quite the same thing the country is experiencing at the moment. That is way more frightening!

any strange numbers now get hung up on. my mother and i for 27 years kept getting a call for*****.
and if we tried to ask questions, they hung up i took over the line and one day i just swore at one of them and then they starteted to say is this you , OR IS THIS YOU? (meaning me) i challenged one fellow by saying for 27 years you and your predicessors have been calling heere . , the voice on the other end said we just bought the list in the last month, i asked , can you put me on your do not call list . no calls since. interesting tacttics, but am sure there are some legalites that may be in play

Revenge without an iota of violence or threats.

their threats sounded so hilarious!

Or the insults, suggesting that they take honest jobs, like garbage picking. Sometimes I get much more rude than that.

They will send a series of letters, and if you don't respond, they will garnish your wages. They don't mess with outbound calls. (My knowledge comes from interviewing and testing to work there, and a neighbor who had her bank account drained because she thought not talking to the IRS was a good course of action...kids, always communicate with the IRS if there is an issue. They will work with you.)

This may be a *tad* out of date as there was news about them possibly selling some old accounts to debt collectors, but I'm suspecting these are issues of small amounts that are old enough for people they can't contact or find a bank account for.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-scams-consumer-alerts

They're mostly reasonable people to work with. And if in doubt, a person could always go to the real IRS website, find their real number and call them to talk to a real agent to verify if there is a problem.

Unfortunately scammers have done this to Medicare/Social Security and other folks too. As in, give us your bank account info or we will stop your benefits.

From the real IRS

https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/scam-phone-calls-continue-irs-identifies-five-easy-ways-to-spot-suspicious-calls

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service issued a consumer alert today providing taxpayers with additional tips to protect themselves from telephone scam artists calling and pretending to be with the IRS.
These callers may demand money or may say you have a refund due and try to trick you into sharing private information. These con artists can sound convincing when they call. They may know a lot about you, and they usually alter the caller ID to make it look like the IRS is calling. They use fake names and bogus IRS identification badge numbers. If you don’t answer, they often leave an “urgent” callback request.
“These telephone scams are being seen in every part of the country, and we urge people not to be deceived by these threatening phone calls,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “We have formal processes in place for people with tax issues. The IRS respects taxpayer rights, and these angry, shake-down calls are not how we do business.”
The IRS reminds people that they can know pretty easily when a supposed IRS caller is a fake. Here are five things the scammers often do but the IRS will not do. Any one of these five things is a tell-tale sign of a scam.

The IRS will never:
Call to demand immediate payment, nor will we call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill..

Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.

Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card.

Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.

Threaten to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS and asking for money, here’s what you should do:
If you know you owe taxes or think you might owe, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS workers can help you with a payment issue.

If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to believe that you do, report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) at 1.800.366.4484 or at www.tigta.gov.

You can file a complaint using the FTC Complaint Assistant; choose “Other” and then “Impostor Scams.” If the complaint involves someone impersonating the IRS, include the words “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes. [See update at top of page.]
Remember, too, the IRS does not use unsolicited email, text messages or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue. For more information on reporting tax scams, go to www.irs.gov and type “scam” in the search box.
Additional information about tax scams are available on IRS social media sites, including YouTube and Tumblr where people can search “scam” to find all the scam-related posts.

It played an advertisement and then told me that the video could not be loaded.

tells me the problem is located between your keyboard and chair. It worked for me just now.

It took me less than a second to find the original youtube video for it:

how much they were taking in prior to this programmer throwing some serious sticks in their spokes!

In a rare bit of cooperation between the two countries' law enforcement.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/04/10/police-arrest-millennial-behind-multi-million-dollar-irs-phone-scam/#11b011f26ffc

"The alleged ringleader, Thakkar, known as "Shaggy," was said to be making more than 10 million rupees ($155,000) a day, or over a million dollars per week, at the scam's peak."

Not bad for a 24 year old millennial.

I love to see hacking used against the bad guys.

spelling and grammatical errors in them. "I" before "E" EXCEPT after c, misplaced apostrophes, and on and on.

Good to know there's people fighting back against this nonsense!

For a video posted from Bored Panda...to the lounge.

My reason for waking up each morning are DUers like you!

it's probably not the IRS.

I love this story. Thanks for sharing!

gotta have a BS detector.

This is probably the best:

he's far more effective than that worthless site.

of times by an IRS scammer. It scared me at the time.. I called the IRS to make sure.

And, when I called the numbers back they had been disconnected by then.

Those poor suckers who actually fall for this.

All I heard was this official sounding man saying there was a warrant out for my arrest.

Yikes!

It was like wth did I do wrong now.. lol

ailsagirl

There was a great one a few years ago with a telemarketer - too good.

I got such a call 3 years ago. After a few minutes I got kind of suspicious. I continued listening to scammer who had transferred my call a few times to "supervisors". When they reached the payment phase I suggested that they contact my banker in Nigeria who was holding several million dollars awaiting my collection. I offered an email address.
The line went dead.

Here's a scammer retaliation I enjoyed. Those were the days... the things you could do with an Atari in 1985!



From Falwell's page on Wikipedia:

That page is almost nothing but ads.

After Losing 70lbs Susan Boyle is Unbelievably Gorgeous
10+ Genius T-Shirt Pairs You Will Be Mad You Didn't Think About First
10+ Times Pets Were Caught Red-Handed

All can be found on the link you provided in your OP (and much more!)

And the t-shirts one too

Happiness is a choice, and we can all choose what to click on

That's what makes click bait sites like Bored Panda so effective.

and right after my brother did my taxes for me I got a call from the "IRS" telling me I owed money. All I said was "uhmm" then hung up and called my brother. He told me I did the right thing. My brother is a tax lawyer so he knows how this works. It turned out that the year they did that it had been happening at a higher rate than usual.