I have not been involved in a car accident, no.

October 19, 2020 7:55 AM

My phone number is on a lot of spammers robo call lists. I am very regularly asked if I have been involved in a car accident. Is there and app I can install to record these spam calls and send them somewhere for enforcement?

I'm not hugely bothered by the calls. A minor annoyance, but I really dislike these low grade grifters and would loooove to cause them some legal hardship.

I was just called by one who threatened me with arrest because of tax fraud, which is a step up from accident scammers.
I reported it to HMRC (they have an email address) but if I could essentially run a phone scammer honeypot I would be glad to do so.
Is it worth playing along on the "accident" phone calls to try and get actual contact details? Or would just straight reporting be useful?
Basically how can I make life hardest for grifters?

posted by Just this guy, y'know to Law & Government (9 answers total)

Best answer: I take it you are in the UK?

I get these as well and find it very annoying. I spent some time looking into it once and apart from the Telephone Preference Service "do not call list" (which does work about 90%), I don't think there is anything that you can do.

It's (mostly) not actually a crime to fail to defraud someone, so if you get the "I heard about your recent car accident" call, you don't actually have any standing to report them to anyone with any teeth until or unless you lose money. Certainly, the phone companies and the police don't seem at all interested in this.

I think the main thing you can do is keep them on the line, get the company info, and make a complaint to TPS. However, they won't give you their company info and hang up if they think you're trying to do that.

I would love to hear otherwise if anyone has more info?
posted by richb at 8:22 AM on October 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't get any of these, and I'm pretty sure I registered with TPS a while ago, so it does seem to work.
posted by penguin pie at 10:17 AM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

The robocallers are almost certainly in another country, and telephone/ cell phone systems do not capture enough data to track them, though it seems they could and should, but that's another question. I seldom answer my phone because it's 95% spam. sometimes that includes family, friends, etc.
posted by theora55 at 2:02 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

I use a robotic voice to say, "You have reached the premium consultancy service offered by Barbara Spitzer. Should you wish to continue with this call, your credit card details must now be provided. We accept all major cards. Please press 1 when you are ready to provide your credit card details." And repeat until they hang up.

This way my phone number is on THEIR Do not call list.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:49 PM on October 19, 2020 [5 favorites]

I think the main thing you can do is keep them on the line, get the company info, and make a complaint to TPS.

If you're on the TPS and still get calls, you can also complain to the ICO.

I keep thinking that I should keep them talking to waste as much of their time as possible on a wild goose chase, that way maybe they'll get so annoyed they'll take me off the list.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:23 AM on October 22, 2020

It's (mostly) not actually a crime to fail to defraud someone,

It is actually illegal to cold call someone who's registered with the TPS, for what it's worth.

I'm on the TPS but a couple of times a month I get the calls that start with a recorded/robot message that's kind of faking a real person asking questions like "Hello... (waits for me to say something)... I've heard you were in car crash that wasn't your fault.... " and if I say something to the effect that yes, I was, I get transferred to a live operator. Unsolicited robo-calls are also specifically illegal.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:44 PM on October 22, 2020

Response by poster: Ok, well I am on TPS now.
So I can (and will) report to ICO.

Interestingly the robocalls have a number of programmed responses (I've gotten a lot and had time to figure them out). I think there must be some rudimentary voice recognition going on, or even maybe an operator pressing buttons and sort of monitoring several call, because one of the robots if asked "Are you a robot" will get angry and defensive at you.
I've tested this with the same bot a couple of times and got the identical response.

So, presumably this is to very ineffectually pretend it's not a robocall.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:24 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: More recently I've gone with:

Robot: I've hear you was involved in a car accident that wasn't your fault?
Me: Yes
Robot: And when was this accident?
Me: 100 Years ago to this very night.... oooooohhhohhhh

But disappointingly they hang up at this point. Entertains me though.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:26 AM on October 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

> I am on TPS now.
> So I can (and will) report to ICO.

... but how, if you don't have any reliable info about who they are?

I tried once or twice to stay on the line and get the company's info, but they hung up very quickly when I asked that sort of question.

Please update here if you find any way forward with this.
posted by richb at 1:01 PM on November 1, 2020 [1 favorite]