As technology progressed, criminals are becoming much more creative in luring people into shady deals.
Fortunately, people are fighting back and even devised ways to make fun of these dishonest people.
In the United States alone, over $29 billion are lost to phone scams just in the past year. Almost 1 in three Americans also claim that they’ve fallen victim to a phone scam. These scams involve people claiming they are from the IRS, your loved one in trouble, a representative saying you won a prize, or a person selling you a product that’s just too good to be true.
In a video posted on YouTube, Cookie’s owner came up with a way to occupy a phone scammer’s time.
She can be heard speaking in the background, quite unsure about the caller’s intentions. When she realized that he was up to no good, she charmingly replied by saying he’s going to be endorsed to the “lady of the house”.
What Cookie’s owner didn’t specify, though, is if the lady is a human or a diluted calico cat.
She place the phone down Cookie’s paws, to which the cat returned with a disinterested stare. If her owner doesn’t want to talk to the person, why should she?
The man, oblivious that he was being filmed and that he was already talking to the lady of the house kept saying “Hello?”
But Cookie’s current title demands that she be held in a certain level of decorum. As such, she replied to the man on the other side of the line with soft purrs and meows.
Meanwhile, the man patiently waited for a reply. It would be a big catch if he could talk to the person owning the estate, but alas, the call was only filled with more cat sounds.
It was not only Cookie’s owner who employed creative ways to ward off phone scammers.
Rosie Okumura was well-known for her counter-prank calls by telling scammers that they’re talking to Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, or Kim Kardashian.
TikTok user Roy LBaker, meanwhile, impersonates a calling machine from the CIA’s non-existent “fraud division”. He then tells the scammer that their call logs are being downloaded and will be matched to the “database”.
But experts also warn about the dangers of engaging with these kinds of calls.
Getting money from you is one thing, but identity theft is also a serious concern. They said that by engaging in a conversation, the scammers confirm that the telephone number is currently working and is under a legitimate person. This information can be then used against you.
Instead, they advise that unknown numbers go directly to voicemail. This way, you don’t have to talk to these scammers and they wouldn’t be able to waste your time.
If you suspect that the call is a spamming robot, block the phone number.
You can also lessen the risk by limiting the times you give your phone number out. Or maybe by getting a cat to answer calls for you.
But to whichever the case is, I hope Cookies got the revenge she and her human deserves. In the end, the call buzzes a long beep before the video closed in laughter.
Watch how this pet owner counter-scammed crooks when she said they were about to speak to the lady of the house.
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Source: YouTube – Cookie the Calico, YouTube – 60 Second Docs, Forbes, Newsweek, CNBC
