Does Call Flooding Really Hurt Scammers? Great question, I’m glad you asked!
Yes, call flooding does hurt scammers, but not in the way you might think.
Face it… if we break a scammer’s phone system the scammer isn’t going to just say “Our phone systems are broken, time to get real jobs now.” Nope, that’s never going to happen.
So, why do we do it then? Because flooding hurts scammers in different ways, depending on the type of scam involved, how large the call center is, what kind of equipment they use and who their phone services are through.
The scammer has to start over. (99% probability) When a scammer’s phone system is broken they have to get a new phone number. This means that all the messages they left on people’s voicemails, or their popup campaign, or mailers are now JUNK!!!! Keep in mind that those popup campaigns are very expensive. Scammers pay thousands of dollars for each campaign. In 60 seconds I can break any popup scammer’s phones. OUCH! That’s gotta hurt! Imagine you own a business and I break your phones, think of the work you have to do to recover. All your ads are junk. You have to inform your customers of your new number. It would be a mess, right?
The scammer’s “phone bill” goes up, up, up! (99% probability) Often our flooding tool costs the scammer $200 or more per minute. And since they always use VOIP (voice over IP) services that auto-bill their credit card when the prepaid minutes are used up we are draining their funds quickly. As a side note, we single-handedly suck millions of dollars a day out of India back into the USA economy. Granted, all that money goes to the phone companies and not the victims, but we aren’t complaining!
No money for the scammer during that time period. (30% probability) Simply put… “No phones” = “No money”. What if the scammer has multiple phone numbers though? Some scammers tell us “You aren’t hurting us, we have many phone lines here.” But they are liars, hence the reason for their career choice. Instead, their phone lines are tied together, not isolated as they claim. This is how we know this to be true:
A) If you call the scammer 2 times, at the same time, you do not get a busy signal. This means all their lines are tied together, not isolated. However, if you call the phone number with one device and use another to call it and get a busy signal, then their phone numbers are isolated. But such a thing is exceptionally rare.
B) Often times the scammer asks “What number are you calling?”. If the phone lines were isolated they wouldn’t need to ask that. But since they are tied together then they don’t know which of their many numbers is being called or even call-flooded at that moment.
Therefore, we can say with good confidence that burning down one of their numbers burns down all of their numbers. During a flooding event it isn’t possible for the scammer to scam anyone, even if they have many phone numbers. And therefore “No Phones” = “No Money”.
The SCREAM Effect. (20% probability) Have you ever called a scammer to mess with them and heard them screaming at someone else in the background? If so then you will know exactly what I am talking about here. What sort of impression will that have on people who are about to be victimized? Is there a CHANCE the potential victim will reason “I thought this was strange in the first place but now with all this screaming in the background it is even stranger yet!” As such, there HAS to be a measurable good probability that when we start flooding a call center and all the scammers start screaming that people who are in the process of being victimized will think twice about following through with the scammer’s demands.
OOPS! I got cut off!!. (20% probability) If someone is being victimized when we break the scammer’s phone system, it is possible that the transaction will be incomplete. Generally speaking, any ongoing phone calls remain despite a broken phone system. However, some victims have to purchase gift cards and if the victim calls the scammer back after having purchased the gift cards and cannot get through then for a certainty the transaction is broken.
Give potential victims PAUSE for concern. (10% probability) Imagine you are dumb enough to call an IRS scammer back because you really thought you were in trouble with the IRS. But, when you do you hear “This phone number is no longer in service” you are going to reason that it was probably a scam in the first place. In the future when you get such a message you will possibly also conclude it’s just a scam. As more people realize this, the less money scammers make.
Force potential victims to find a different solution. (10% probability) If you get a popup on your computer or mobile device with a phone number to call to fix the issue, and you call it, and the number is not active you are forced to find a different solution. You then discover that rebooting your device fixes the issue and you didn’t need to call in the first place. Next time you get the popup you know simply to restart the browser or your computer. As more people realize this, the less money scammers make.
Junk “Sucker List”. (10% probability) Many scammers work off of a list of phone numbers called a “Sucker List”. These lists are often updated by the incoming calls (Caller ID). When we flood the scammer the Caller ID is completely random. In some cases the incoming caller ID is placed in their database list of phone numbers without regard if the incoming call was legitimate or not. With hundreds of calls per minute, these “Sucker Lists” fill up with junk phone numbers quickly. This, in turn, frustrates the effort of the scammers to reach real people and a tremendous loss of their time doing so. Talk about wanting to fall asleep on the job quickly!!
Opps, we tripped the breaker. (5% probability) Some phone companies have enlisted auto-detection processes in their systems that detect TDOS (also known as traffic-pumping or as we call it “call-flooding”). Since a TDOS can potentially compromise an entire network, a phone company sometimes offload a phone number so as to protect their network. What’s noteworthy about this is sometimes an entire call center goes offline for a time with less than 100 calls and then comes online about an hour later. In that case we employ a system that makes calls in random timing intervals so that we don’t trip the breaker but instead break the scammer’s phones. In the end, it doesn’t really matter to us if we broke their phones or we tripped a breaker with their phone provider. Either way it’s a win for us because the end result is always the same.
Employees sent home? (1% probability) This one is kind of funny. When we flood scammers we call back and check up on them. In some large call centers you can hear many people in the background. Over the course of flooding a large call center we call back periodically and you can hear less and less people in the background. At times, after a few hours of flooding we get the same 2-3 people each time we call. It is fun to think that AT LEAST 1% of the time all the employees are sent home early because there is no use in having them there when their phones don’t work!
The “Ok, that was the last straw” effect. (.05% probability) Yah, I know this one is rated .05% probability because this one is WAAAY out there. However, hear me out on this one. Have you ever been so disgusted with your job where you reasoned “One more thing… just one more thing and I am out of here!” Of course you have!! Imagine you are a scammer and you are sick of your job. Then I come along and destroy your phones. That’s it! You’ve had enough of this crap and you are outta here! Or better yet, imagine the boss is really upset because of what we do and yells at the employees. Or perhaps he was thinking about firing one of them for low performance but is now in a really bad mood because we broke their phones and follows through with it. I realize this is a far-fetched idea, but would you agree that the .05% (half of one percent) is a fair assessment? I thought so! Ok, so if we break 200 scammer phone systems per day (which we do) then that’s one scammer per day that quit or lost their job because of us. Again, this is mostly unlikely, but the possibility is good enough for me!
The “What the heck?” effect. (.01 probability) If you were doing something illegal and your phones started acting up, you just might consider the possibility that the government is doing it. And if the government is doing it then you are about to get busted! I’m certain that this is a crazy scenario but if a scammer just started their ‘job’ the same day (or week) that we hit their phones they just might think twice about their career choice and leave their job.
Ready for a little payback? See these articles:
Ultimate method of scammer payback
The solution for too many sales or scam calls
Report A Scammer
How you can join the team
IN CONCLUSION, flooding a scammer may not accomplish a whole lot. CONSTANT flooding of the same scammer when they get a new number accomplishes much over time. However, the greatest solution is in people like you spreading the word about us and reporting scammer phone numbers to us immediately. Your reports here and on other websites accomplish much…. and that’s a 100% probability!