Scammer calls. How I got into it.

[Wayne]

Let me begin this with a story that happened about 17 years ago.

At the time I was a member of another forum, and there was a member there called Dan Cottrell who had a weekly online radio show where he would call up scammers. He would typically saunter up about an hour before the show asking for any numbers he could call. I'd usually throw him a few numbers to call, and he would pretend to be my character in them. For someone that does a lot of public speaking, you may be surprised that I actually hate the sound of my own voice. Let's be frank here, between my Welsh accent, my lisp and the fact I'm very soft spoken, I don't exactly sound like your typical speaker. Anyway, one day a romance scammer that he was talking to got him confused with someone else, so he said I should come in as my character during the call and really mess with their head. I was AWFUL!! Genuinely, I'm embarrassed in how bad I sounded on it. People seemed to like it though, and Dan asked me a few weeks later if I'd cover the show for him while he was away. I got together a team and called up scammers for the next few days until we had enough good calls to fill the show.

Every show began with "Gone Phishin'" by Dean Friedman, and I sent Deano an email explaining how we'd use his song at the start of every show, and asking if he'd be willing to be interviewed by me for the podcast. Surprisingly he not only agreed but gave me his number to call. I called up Dan and told him I'd managed to get and interview with Dean, and when he asked how the f**k I'd managed it I said "I asked him".

As time went on, I ended up covering more and more of the shows. As such I had to up my lad calling game. Thankfully I made some great friends along when way who would join with me in doing them. Working with others helped not only improve my calling game, but boost my confidence. Eventually I even set up my own podcast.

These days I'm actually in a position where I run workshops showing others how to call up scammers. It may sound like a cliche, but if I can do it then anyone can do it. All you need is the confidence to say whatever comes to mind without second guessing it. That for most people is the most difficult bit. Once you overcome that, anything is possible.

And to finish this post, I just want to point out that the entire SS crew now go to see Deano every year when we go on holiday together. We really need to ask him to play Gone Phishin' during one of those gigs.

[Big Al]

As long as we're on scammer calls I feel compelled to write about my experience in doing it. I was in a group and I understood that I was probably talking to a hardened criminal so I was very nervous about it. I probably was awful at it the first time too but apparently I caught on fast as it wasn't long before I was dubbed "The Schmoozemeister". The key for me was to understand that I'm talking to a real person and it didn't matter that he was a criminal. He can be talked to as a person and can be manipulated just like any of his victims. Plus, there was no way they could ever track me down because I was using the "Safe Baiting" protocols. I did mostly funny calls back then but some straight bait calls too.

Oddly, doing those calls helped me a lot when I transitioned into victim warning and support calls.