fun with scammers

 Both my landline and mobile phone are with the telephone preference scheme, and neither is widely disseminated, so I don't get a lot of scam calls. But some do get through, and it's more noticeable when I work from home, which I've been doing every day since March.

Previously I would either just put the phone down, get angry and vent (which is a bad thing both for me, and the poor worker on the other end of the line), or just politely and firmly say no thanks and put the phone down.

However, recently I've taken to gently trolling them with absurd responses. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was very insistent that callers (who were after my internet provider and bank details) had rung me because they wanted to buy logs. I had very good quality, low cost pine logs for their fire, which they should buy from me. This went on for two or three minutes until the caller realised he was getting nowhere and hung up.

Today it was a claim that I'd been involved in a car accident where I wasn't at fault (easy since I don't drive). This time I was insistent they were the police responding to my call about two cats fighting outside my door. It was frightening and I was scared to go out, I was very emotional on this point. They had to help. They didn't help and ended the call in less than a minute.

I have a number of further absurd/surreal scenarios for future scammers to negotiate. The main thing is to be polite, to be utterly relentless and focussed on your nonsensical scenario, and to take it absolutely seriously. Also, obviously, don't get drawn into conversation or give them any information.