Scamming the Scammer:Revenge was sweet until . . . it wasn’t

Photo from National Cancer Institute

I was in the groove. Mind flying too fast for my fingers, I whispered words as they trotted merrily across the screen. Paragraphs took shape in a fusion of ideas and the sheer pleasure of pounding those keys. I was in my element, doing my thing . . . Until the phone rang. Unlike my children, it seems, I can’t ignore a ringing phone. It might be my grandson. Besides, the flow was gone. Groaning, I picked up and issued a perfunctory greeting.

A tell-tale pause. Some computer telling some jerk they’ve snagged a hot one. I could have hung up. Five days in a row, I had answered what turned out to be Medicare scam calls. But this was the moment to exact my carefully calibrated revenge.

‍I played along, telling myself I was doing a public service. If the scammer was talking to me, he wasn’t conning someone else; someone more vulnerable; someone who couldn’t see through him. It was always a man. I’d honed my skills until I could string a gullible scammer along for nearly an hour. I figured in that time I’d saved a half dozen older people from disruption and even from the risk of losing a vital part of their identity: their Medicare number.

‍Somebody really ought to give me a medal.

It takes skill. The con man will hang up the instant he senses I’m on to him. No fun in that. By the time my scammer picks up the line, I’m ready to play.

“Hello, I’m calling for Amanda . . . BAR-hush.”(He always gets my last name wrong.)

“Yes, this is Amanda.” I speak slowly to sound vulnerable, unsure — old.

“Hello, Amanda.” He repeats my name. Someone must have told him it would soften me up, but it raises my hackles every time. “My name is William.” The American-style name never matches his accent.

Let the games begin.

He goes on, “I work for the Medicare office and I need to verify your number.” ‍

“William?” I reply. “That’s a nice name. Is it your real name?”

(pause) “Uh, ma’am. I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean, is that the name your parents gave you? Or did you just make it up? Or did someone assign it to you?” He hangs up.

Next day, new voice—same accent: “Hi, this is Tony. I’m calling from the Medicare office.” ‍

I’m ready to try a more subtle approach.

“Tony, that’s a nice name.” I allow for a significant pause.

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

“I mean, is Tony short for Antonio? Does it come from Spain? Or Mexico? Or maybe it’s from Ohio, I don’t know. Do they have Anthonys in Ohio?” I could babble on forever.

He interrupts, “I’m calling from the Medicare office.”

If I tell him there’s no such thing, he’ll hang up. I button my lip. He goes on, “We need to confirm your number to make sure your coverage is accurate.”

When I remain quiet, he takes a new tack, explaining that the office suspects a fraudulent claim has been made using my ID. After all, we all know that Medicare fraud is a multi-billion dollar industry. I chuckle quietly at the irony: my scammer asking me to help fight the very fraud he hopes to perpetrate.

Whenever it’s my turn, I ask a new question: “Do you have a supervisor?” Yes. “Could I talk with them?” Yes. I wait while he finds someone to fill in as his supervisor and confirm that yes, the Medicare office was indeed concerned about fraud on my account. Would I please cooperate with Mr. Tony? This takes plenty of time. Of course, I will cooperate and, when Tony comes back on the line I ask, “What’s your name again?”

Old people are forgetful, you know.

Tony patiently gives me his name and explains once again that he wants my Medicare number.

I give in with a sigh. “I’ll have to go find my card.”

“Yes, please, Amanda. That would be very helpful.”

“Oh, it’s no bother. No bother at all.” Long-suffering me with so little to do…

It takes me a long time to find my card — sometimes half an hour. He won’t hang up at this stage. He thinks I’m a live prospect. I think of all the calls he can’t make while I look for my card.

Finally, I pick up the phone, apologize and offer a lengthy explanation. “I’m sorry to keep you so long. I thought it would be with my health files but it wasn’t. You’ll never guess where it was.” I pause, but he refuses to play along. Sometimes he gets irritable, but I just ignore him and prattle away to my heart’s content. “It was in the kitchen drawer all along. Can you believe it?”

He chuckles. “No problem, really. I understand.” A sly grin sneaks across my face as I imagine him thinking terrible things about this dithering woman who can’t even find her Medicare card.

Then I give him a made-up number that matches the Medicare format. I read it slowly, but sometimes I get it wrong and have to go back and re-read it. Again and again. Tony doesn’t care. He’s salivating like mad.

I hang up with a sadistic cackle. These scammers have no idea who they’re dealing with. I brush my hands and get back to work.

Something New and Different

The next day it’s a woman on the line.

“Hello, Amanda. My name is Melissa and I work for the Medicare. . .”

I can’t bear to listen to that part again. I interrupt. “Melissa. That’s a beautiful name. Is it Greek?”

“It is, as a matter of fact.” She seems pleased that I had got it right. I’m pleased that she’s pleased. She is very good. I am not sure who is in charge.

As the call goes along, its predictability grows more and more irritating. Playing along has lost its allure. Finally, I snap.

“How on earth can you face yourself in the mirror?” I demand. “Do you know how many calls like this I’ve gotten in the last month from people like you trying to steal my identity? Does your mother know this is how you make a living?”

She doesn’t hang up on me. Melissa listens to my entire tirade. When I’ve finally had enough, I say, “Now you go find yourself an honest job.” I bang down the phone, bursting with righteous indignation.

I never got another Medicare call again. If I had known then what I know now, my script would have been different.

The Scam Factories

My understanding of scamming was way behind the times. I envisioned William, Tony, and Melissa as small-time robbers who chose scamming as a lucrative alternative to, say, office work. Soooo 20th century.

A 2026 report by the United Nations, along with investigative journalism by CBS and other outlets, reveals a much more sinister 21st-century reality. Hundreds of thousands of people, primarily in Southeast Asia (most in the Mekong region), are lured from their homes and literally forced to work in massive cyber-scam factories — five-story compounds surrounded by high walls and patrolled by armed security guards, where they are confined for years committing what the UN calls “forced criminality,” known in some of the compounds as “pig butchering.”

A young woman who could have been my Melissa reported to the interviewer that she had been confined in crowded and unsanitary quarters, where she had to reach a quota of $9,500 in scam revenue per day. If she failed to reach that, she risked spending hours immersed in containers known as “water prisons,” or being confined in total darkness for days, along with starvation, rape, beating, even death. Her passport had been confiscated when she crossed the border expecting to begin her new job. So even if she did manage to escape the compound, she might be unable to go home. Melissa might never see that mother I so blithely mentioned.

Another woman from Thailand said she was forced to serve as a “money mule”: opening new bank accounts and turning over her existing account for use by the syndicate to commit financial fraud. Even after she was rescued from the compound, she faced criminal charges due to crimes that were perpetrated using her bank account.

The criminal syndicates that run these compounds have tremendous resources and they could not operate without the cooperation of government officials, local law enforcement, immigration authorities and others. Indeed, local authorities initially managed to shut down electricity and Internet service to some compounds only to find them resorting to Starlink and on-site power generation.

My new and multiplying friends with the American names are not the problem; indeed, they are cruelly victimized in these compounds. Far from helping, my antics don’t even begin to address the massive corruption and greed that enable these compounds to operate with impunity. I didn’t even think to ask where they got my name, phone number and Medicare status. Because the corruption extends well beyond the scam factories. Someone had failed to protect my private information and that someone was probably sitting in a comfortable office in the U.S. of A.

If Melissa ever calls back, I won’t mention her mother. I’ll give her the phone number for the International Justice Mission or Atlas Free, two of several organizations working to rescue people like her. After we hang up, I’ll call my congressman and ask what he’s doing to shut down the scam factories.

‍

Postscript: Yesterday, my cell phone rang when I was trying to get some work done. A man with a familiar accent said he worked for T-Mobile and asked whether I had had any problems with connections on my cell phone.

Of course I had, just the day before, I explained, still half thinking about the paragraph I was drafting.

He said T-Mobile didn’t want to lose me as a customer so they would give me a 30–40 percent discount on my account for three years. All I had to do was give him the PIN for my account.

But I didn’t remember it.

That was OK. He could set a new one for me if I would just text yes to the link he sent.

My eyes slid from the computer screen to the link. My index finger hovered above the “y.”

“How do I know you’re from T-Mobile?” I asked.

He hung up.

I settled back in my chair and googled the fraud report link for the FTC.