Reading this article I was surprised what innocent looking web pages are actually online scams
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Here in the states, weâve been told about these innocent questions on FB and other websites, forums, etc. for over two years. Yet I continue to see my friends engaging in these ânametestsâ surveys, cute replies over and over. Some of us are too gullible to leave them alone.
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I had a phone call the other day. It started off simply enough, âIs this Dannyâ
Replied yes. "I need to verify your identity can you tell me your birthdate?
Me âWho are you calling for and why do you need to verify my identity, after all thatâs not info I give out freely.â
Response: âI canât continue sir unless I verify itâs you.â
Me: âThen tell me on whoâs behalf your calling and letâs go from thereâ
Response: âI canât continue sir unless I verify itâs you.â
Me: Hung up.
I mean really. Just call someone up and ask all their vitals, and the shame is there are trusting people out there that would have answered those questions. 
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Danny, that was almost too obvious even for a scammer.
If I am in a good mood, have nothing more to do, I will bait them. I also never, ever say the âyesâ as they use this recorded yes, then call you back a week later and say you have agreed to buying something, and you say no. They ask if this is your voice, etc.
Often, I answer the phone âNew York Attorney Generalâs Office. How may I help you?â If they are brazen enough to continue, I tell them that I am recording the conversation, but they can certainly continue. After another minute has passed, I repeat that the conversation is being recorded, and I am happy to tie up the phone lines so they donât scam someone else.
That usually does it. They hang up. 
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Yeah, normally I make fun of them myself.
Hello is this Danny?
Who did you call?
Iâm trying to reach Danny?
Who did you call?
Sir is this Danny?
Who did you call?
LOL they usually hang up in disgust. 
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I am often surprised by how people I think are quite intelligent give out information like this on Facebook.
My cousin, for example, gave her sonâs name in reply to a post âName a son you love to the moon and backâ and another one â How old were you in the summer of â69â?
Itâs just data mining.
Loads of people use a childâs name as a password, and now they know her sonâs name and surname ( same as hers) and could look up his date of birth
And sheâs given them her own year she was born.
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As someone once said there is no limit to what you can achieve, whilst the public continue to be gullible.
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We no longer have a landline, but until recently we received regular calls along these lines.
One advantage, and a dead giveaway of a scammer is an Indian accent! I donât know about America, but the scammers who operate in this country almost always seem to have an Indian accent.
Until the novelty wore off, I used to really enjoy playing them along for as long as I could. Playing the innocent was, I found, the best strategy.
For example, when a scammer called to advise me that my computer may have been subjected to a virus (not Covid, surprisingly!), I was happy to play along and had various tactics to play.
One was to advise the caller that I am turning on my computer, but that it does take an age to come on, being quite old now. After several minutes, Iâd misunderstand some instructions and state either that I wasnât sure âhow to do thatâ, or that Iâd âpressed the wrong buttonâ or perhaps âoh dear, my screen seems to have gone blackâ.
It was sometimes possible to keep them occupied for quite some time, even up to 15 or 20 minutes before the penny dropped.
On one occasion, the gentleman caller really lost his temper with me and called me a f*ing ct - in an Indian accent of course.
I feel that I was actually performing a public service in keeping them occupied in this way, as theyâd then be unable to bother other victims.
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