1. I figure all unsolicited calls by organizations are scams.
2. Even if they are not scams, I do not want to waste my time with ANY of them.
3. I NEVER give money or information over the phone.
4. As soon as I hear boiler room sounds, a foreign accent, “My name is ...”, “Is this ...”, or “Is the man [woman] ...”, I hang up.
5. Finally, I immediately block the number using the Panasonic phone blocking capability. This last part is the best part because if they call back, the phone only rings once and then automatically blocks further access. Some orgs are really persistent and change up numbers when this happens, but I just block again, and pretty soon they too give up.
[OTOH, I do like to goof the Indian criminals that call and say they’ve detected viruses being emitted from my computer and want a lot of money to fix the problem. Either I pretend naivete and incredulousness, and lead them down the primrose path, asking how they could possibly know something like that, oh, and then you must know my IP number, and then, well what IS my IP number, until they know they’ve been had and abruptly hang up, or I say, “Well, that’s funny, because my computer hasn’t been turned on in a week.”, in which case they also abruptly hang up.]
AMEN brother.
We were being inundated with scam calls, the credit card scam mostly. They'd change numbers often so we couldn't get a handle on them. Multiple calls daily.
The 'Do Not Call' list only gives them 'live' numbers. Worse than worthless.
I had a full notebook page of phone numbers.
Bought a Panasonic cordless capable of blocking 250 numbers or groups of numbers.
Programmed all the obscure area codes. Not the codes in family or local areas.
Wow. THe end of the calls.
Best investment I've made this year.