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Woman Reveals How She Makes Spam Callers Pay Her Money In This Viral Thread
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Woman Reveals How She Makes Spam Callers Pay Her Money In This Viral Thread

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Unwanted calls, including illegal and spoofed robocalls, are the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) top consumer complaint and its top consumer protection priority. So as you can imagine, Americans receive plenty of them. But a Twitter user who goes by the name Miss Odessa has just posted a thread, explaining how Americans can make money off of them.

The Californian mother walked everyone through the multi-step process but some people, even though they appreciated the detailed guide, said the task seems a bit too demanding for their comfortable butts. Everyone wants free money.

Image credits: Pexels (not the actual photo)

NBC News reported that the number of scam calls to phone lines in the United States dropped by half at the start of the pandemic, as lockdowns closed the call centers necessary to robocall enterprises and reduced the number of phone lines with a person on the other end.

After the initial decline, robocalls started coming back, but then Covid-19 took over India and calls fell almost 20 percent from March to May, as the disease surged and prompted states and cities to institute a new wave of lockdowns.

Turns out, Americans can make over a thousand for every spam call they receive

Image credits: missodessa

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Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

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Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

Even though there’s not much we can do about spammers and scammers from overseas (except maybe have fun with them as Kitboga does), we can at least celebrate that for every day they can’t work, someone gets to keep their money. Alex Quilici, CEO of the voicemail provider and scam-blocking app YouMail, said the lockdowns have had the side effect of preventing people who work at call centers from going into those call centers. “They couldn’t leave their homes, so they couldn’t do the scams,” Quilici said. “No point of making a robocall if no one’s there when you press 1.”

India, Pakistan, and the Dominican Republic are among the main origin points for illegal robocalls involving Social Security, debt collection, and bogus utilities, said Josh Bercu, vice president of policy and advocacy at USTelecom, the association that organizes the industry’s robocall tracing efforts. “Those types of pure fraud almost always are coming from overseas,” Bercu told NBC News.

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Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

In October 2019, an estimated 5.7 billion scam calls reached consumers, according to data from YouMail. Quilici said that while a series of enforcement actions from the FCC and the Department of Justice brought the total down some in late 2019 and early 2020, they absolutely bottomed out in April and May 2020, falling by nearly half.

After her thread went viral, Miss Odessa answered a few popular questions

Image credits: missodessa

Image credits: missodessa

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It wasn’t the first time Miss Odessa has tried this and apparently you can earn a decent sum

Image credits: missodessa

But not everyone has the energy to go through with it

Image credits: lesleebalboa

Image credits: wierzandrew

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Rokas Laurinavičius

Rokas Laurinavičius

Writer, BoredPanda staff

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Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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Rokas Laurinavičius

Rokas Laurinavičius

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

Mindaugas Balčiauskas

Mindaugas Balčiauskas

Author, BoredPanda staff

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I'm a visual editor at Bored Panda. I kickstart my day with a mug of coffee bigger than my head, ready to tackle Photoshop. I navigate through the digital jungle with finesse, fueled by bamboo breaks and caffeine kicks. When the workday winds down, you might catch me devouring bamboo snacks while binging on the latest TV show, gaming or I could be out in nature, soaking up the tranquility and communing with my inner panda.

Read less »

Mindaugas Balčiauskas

Mindaugas Balčiauskas

Author, BoredPanda staff

I'm a visual editor at Bored Panda. I kickstart my day with a mug of coffee bigger than my head, ready to tackle Photoshop. I navigate through the digital jungle with finesse, fueled by bamboo breaks and caffeine kicks. When the workday winds down, you might catch me devouring bamboo snacks while binging on the latest TV show, gaming or I could be out in nature, soaking up the tranquility and communing with my inner panda.

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Stephanie Keith
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is bullcrap. Every scam call is always from another country anyway so this won't work.

Julie C Rose
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, in fact one of the ways I know a call is likely to be a scam is if it’s an unknown number from overseas. I’ve never had a domestic scam call.

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Troux
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Isn't this illegal blackmail? "You broke the law, but I will not report it if you pay me money."

John C
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

by that definition, the DA offering a lighter sentence for cooperation in their investigation would also be blackmail. I think they key is "revealing information" for money. But that's not what you're threatening to do: you're threatening to sue them and take them to court.

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Stephanie Keith
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is bullcrap. Every scam call is always from another country anyway so this won't work.

Julie C Rose
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, in fact one of the ways I know a call is likely to be a scam is if it’s an unknown number from overseas. I’ve never had a domestic scam call.

Load More Replies...
Troux
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Isn't this illegal blackmail? "You broke the law, but I will not report it if you pay me money."

John C
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

by that definition, the DA offering a lighter sentence for cooperation in their investigation would also be blackmail. I think they key is "revealing information" for money. But that's not what you're threatening to do: you're threatening to sue them and take them to court.

Load More Replies...
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