I answer most robo calls and usually try to call back after I get them to hang up on me. The number is almost never in service. When it is and it leads to the scammer I'll sometimes continue calling and messing with them until my number is blocked by them. I've been messing with spam callers for more than 20 years. I wish more people would answer these calls and waste as much of their time as possible.

Not advisable to call them back from New Zealand at least. I've heard of a couple of people calling them back only to find out a month later that the number they called was actually a pay per minute number and they were charged upwards of $20 a minute.

Sometimes they leave a message on the voicemail, and in this case you do have a number to be called back. I wonder if it would be legal for you to recall them using a robodialer.

Say you implement something like this: https://www.wombatdialer.com/blog/blog/2017/03/17/outbounds-... this is a reverse IVR, that keeps calling until it gets an explicit acknowledgement. It is cheap to run (you set up a FreePBX somewhere), it does not tire, and can go on until it gets a confirmation.

It would need to be paired with something like Jolly Roger, above, which is darn good at spoofing a human for a while. It would need a variety of voices and scripts so the recipient humans wouldn't get trained on it too fast.

You could simply play a message of your voice that says "My number is 555-123-4444 please get me immediately off your list - press 7 to confirm". They will hang up and the dialer will call again. And again.

At least in the UK, the calling number is nowadays almost always spoofed.

I don't know enough about the telephone system to know if number spoofing is something providers could prevent?

Right but for the scam to work at some point they have to connect you to a human who asks for payment. So while the Caller ID may be spoofed the number embedded in the message wouldn't be.

Did you just fulfilled for "one ring" scam by calling them back?

I never called back a number unless I had an amusing conversation with someone first

I amuse myself by asking the "health insurance" and student loan callers for a number at which I can call them back. This generally causes an immediate disconnection. One guy was naive enough to give me a real number, but I never got around to hassling them.

In the days when the calls were for auto warranties, it was "What company do you represent, and in what state is it incorporated?" that caused them to disconnect.

I once had a solicitation for cable so I tried to get the guy to describe in as much detail as he would the porn options.

When I get calls from the home buyer scams I'll get to the point where they ask for my address. I'll make up something like 6843927991 Esplanada Terraced View Way Point Circle and I've never been called on it, they act like something is wrong with the system when they can't find the address.

Sometimes when I call numbers back I'll go right into a spiel asking if they're registered voters who want to see Trump president for life and what monthly support amount can we count on. I find it so amusing when I get responses like "this number can not receive unsolicited calls". I found for some reason people will usually stay on the line if you plow through the conversation, it's like they want to first explain why I shouldn't be calling them before hanging up.

For some reason my favorite name I've come up with for these people is Bobert Robertson. I'll play with them when they ask me to spell it, sometimes it's Bobrot Robyurtzon, the y is silent of course.

I've had people beg me to stop calling them, that I'm disrupting their work day. When you get into it it can be very amusing.

Isn't this what screen call is for Pixel?