I just got a call from my adult grandson (my oldest grandkid is 6.) Apparent he is being held for ransom. He had payment details in hand. I asked him his name, and, after I pushed him a bit, he gave me a different name than any of mine. I told him to call me back when he had learned how to steal. Oh well, at least there was no Paki accent.

In my leisure time I see how long I can string them along.
As you get older, it's the simple pleasures.

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I just got a call from my adult grandson (my oldest grandkid is 6.) Apparent he is being held for ransom.

It's nice to hear from the grandkids once in a while, isn't it?

I like to negotiate with them. Usually telling them that the wife has been cheating on me or my parents were really jerks growing up so I feel like they should cut me a deal since frankly they are selling damaged goods.

That usually illicits an uncomfortable silence.

They almost got my 91 year old mom a few months back for $8500.

I caught wind of it and intervened and drove her back to the bank to re deposit the cash.

Mom was of no help whatsoever and that made investigating this crime impossible.

Believe it or not, it frequently works. Old folks are ripe for scamming.

I am getting older and as I age, I find myself expanding the scope of my nastiness and intolerance of scams and other BS. Keeps me from falling victim to these things.
I hope the trend continues!

They're intentionally set-up that way to catch the stupid/ignorant/naieve people and not waste their time with people who can catch on.

I got one of those. My response was to take whatever he needed out of the $75K I sent him last week. Then hung up.

I've been playing with an online scammer for the last couple days, jerking them around as much as possible. It's starting to grow kind of boring because of how stupid they are. Even when I tell them I know they're a scammer and point out all the obvious reasons. A while later I'll reposed like I never said any of it, and they pick up right where they left off. I can see why they do it, because they're too stupid to do this even half assed, they'd never make it at a real job.

They tried to get my mom a couple times but she no longer has control of her finances. That doesn't reduce the damage as she was in tears thinking her granddaughter was being held in jail and couldn't do anything about it as she was told and convinced not tell anyone.
If I were king, there would be smoking holes located at the sources of the scams.

We're told nothing can be done about it because it's from overseas.

Well, I'm a natural born asshole I wouldn't pay ransom if they actually had my grandson.

Mark Rober on Youtube posted a video last week about the send cash scammers and his adventures tracking them down.

Interesting to see that there are at least 3 tiers of people involved.
Mules that intercept delivery of the cash from FedEx at front addresses (hotels, Air BnB, ...) supervisors that distribute the funds, and the call center scammers overseas.