Phone scams are a daily annoyance many of us have to endure, despite federal crackdowns on these illegal calls. These scams are also getting more sophisticated. If you’re looking for a more proactive way to deal with scammers than just not answering your phone, follow the lead of Marissa Chabria’s roommate.
Chabria (@marissachabria) posted a POV TikTok this week, showing her roommate allegedly calling back a persistent phone scammer and pretending to be in a car crash.
She plays the sound of a car tires screeching, then screams. That’s followed by the sound of a truck horn blaring. The sounds of the crash continue for around 15 more seconds. The TikTok has more than 680,000 views.
“The longest crash in history !!” said one commenter.
“I did this one but instead I pretended someone was breaking into my house Ghostface style and screamed at the scammer to call for help.”
“That sounds like a whole Michael Bay action sequence.”
@marissachabria The truck sound got me dead💀😂 #roomies #scammers #callscams ♬ original sound – Marissa Chabria
While this is certainly an entertaining way to try to get scammers to give up, others offered their own advice for dealing with them.
“I just let them talk to me for a while,” says @definitelynotcyn. She cites a particular jury duty scam where they tell targets they owe money or will face jail time.
“They never think that people are gonna opt in to the jail [option],” she says.
Of course, these calls are so frequent that there’s practically a TikTok subgenre of creative ways to prank scammers. Like making them think they’re on a live TV broadcast.
@theafryknas #prankcall #fyp #scammer ♬ msnewslady Jeannette Reyes – JENNIE HUFF
We reached out to Chabria for comment.
