I can only speak for myself, but I often feel a little conflicted when I get a call from a scammer.
On one hand, I obviously don’t like being bothered, especially by people who I have every reason to believe have conned others out of a potentially life-changing amount of money.
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But on the other hand, if they catch you on the right day, they can be pretty fun to mess with. And while there’s some value in wasting their time while they’re wasting yours, some folks have become good enough at pranking them that they can scare them off before the scammer even says anything.
And while one woman on TikTok didn’t necessarily break the speed record for doing this, it’s not hard to appreciate the stunt she did pull.
In a video posted to TikTok, Fox 5 news anchor Jeannette Reyes holds up her phone, showing a caller that has been identified as a scam risk.
Before she answers, she says, “OK so I’ve been getting really annoyed with these people.”
But of course, that’s not the energy she wanted to bring because she wanted her unsuspecting scammer to stay that way.
And after he introduces himself, our scammer starts with exactly the kind of statement that would get our attention.
As he can be heard saying, “I’m calling in regards to an outstanding warrant we have for your arrest due to an outstanding balance on your account of $2,792.33.”
It’s like they couldn’t decide between pretending their marks were in financial trouble or legal trouble, so they just went with both no matter how little sense it makes.
But while Reyes was obviously incredulous, she played along and seemed willing to pay for it right then and there.
Conveniently, it seemed that the warrant this scammer had was the special kind that stops mattering once you pay him $2,500. Very interesting.
But once he asked for Reyes’ credit card number, she had a surprise for him.
As you’ll see in the full video, she counts down from three, but does it in the slow and steady way that we tend to use while reading off our card numbers.
And once she reaches one, she switches right into her anchor voice and tells the scammer that he’s starring in a live investigation into scam callers that features the FBI listening on the line.
You can see for yourself what happens from there but suffice it to say, their conversation doesn’t last too long after that trick.
