Silly idea for Phone Scam Alert app / button

[Joss]

Sitting here listening to the many scam phone calls my mother receives on her landline (and probably would on her mobile if she used it), I would love to have a little jokey functionality that simply did the following.

On receipt of scam insurance, ppi, car accident, lottery or computer security call, she would simply press a button:

SFX:  Blaze of deafening siren down phone line (must make their ears bleed)

SFX: (Under v/o) Dialling number bleeps (siren fades to background)

Female VO (Authoritative): Your call has caused a security alert. Your number and location are being traced and security authorities have been notified. Please cease and desist, stay seated and place your hands on your head. Your company will now be subject to an official investigation. It is vital that you remain exactly where you are. Failure to do so will be seen as non-cooperation and will be subject to criminal proceedings. This message is an automated advisory. 

SFX: Bleeping and Siren stops abruptly.

VO: Trace completed. Please wait for your local security forces.

END

Okay, so it is as fake as they are and they probably will only hear a few words of it before they hang up, but I would feel loads better having triggered it! 

PS: When I receive these calls, I now make it a policy not to hang up immediately as the gov suggest, but to get angry and foul mouthed and make their day as miserable as possible. If everytime they made a call they got an earful of very personal abuse, I am sure they would start looking for alternative careers after a while....

PPS: Multi language versions would also be cute ....

PPPS: since so many of these calls originate from Indian call centres and English is the Lingua Franca of Calcutta, Mumbai and so on, do English speaking countries suffer from more of these than, say, German or French countries?

[Peter Knight]

I love the Telecrapper. Some guy hooked his landline up to a computer which could recognise incoming cold calls by their number. His computer would then kick in with a series of random conversations he'd pre-recorded.

Here's a recording

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/play/464574/

Here's the guys homepage

http://myplace.frontier.com/~pumamanor/

At the end of that page theres a few great audio files although the sound quality isn't great.

[Joss]

Love it!

[Martijn Geerts]

In the netherlands we have https://www.bel-me-niet.nl/ (call me not). We can register our phone number (s) in the call-me-not register. Then companies may no longer approach us for commercial, idealistic or for charitable purposes. Unless they (were) is a customer of the company concerned, or asked for the telephone communications. Companies and organizations need before they call, make sure no one from their call list is registered in the call-me-not register.

[adrian]

In the netherlands we have https://www.bel-me-niet.nl/ (call me not). We can register our phone number (s) in the call-me-not register. Then companies may no longer approach us for commercial, idealistic or for charitable purposes. Unless they (were) is a customer of the company concerned, or asked for the telephone communications. Companies and organizations need before they call, make sure no one from their call list is registered in the call-me-not register.

Yeah, we have the same thing in Canada, but it doesn't do S*&t!!! I almost think some companies are using it as a free call database to work with

[Martijn Geerts]

here it works

[Joss]

We have the same in the UK - but it is impossible to insist that companies outside the UK take any notice.

We made a mistake in telecoms many, many years ago by making numbers public by default; printed in a directory back then. Companies now believe they have an automatic right to your contact information unless you say otherwise.

To me, that is fundamentally wrong. If a salesperson wants to sell to me, I expect them to go to the trouble of coming to my door so I can scare the bejeebers out of them!

[martinaoslov]

Fun idea to piss off the nuisance callers! I'd like to try that, too... Hmm...

[martinaoslov]

By the way, I found these tips from Callercenter.com that do the trick, too. I didn't know taking nuisance calls can be made fun.

Edited December 19, 2014 by martinaoslov