I answered every spam call for a week and got to talk to a real live scammer

Spam calls. I get them all the time, random numbers dialing me at all hours of the day. A good number of them are tagged by my iPhone as spam. Usually, I just ignore every phone number I don’t recognize — if it’s important, they’ll leave a voicemail.

Unfortunately, what often happens is I get a lot of useless voicemails, filled with either dead air or some automated message about what sounds like a pyramid scheme or loan alternative.

But then I thought: What would happen if I answered my phone every time someone called for a week? Even better, what if I had to stay on the call for at least 30 seconds or so to figure out what is happening? With these social-experiment rules in place, I did so. Here are the results.

The calls

I conducted my experiment during the week of August 4, 2025. From August 4 to August 7, I received 17 calls from unrecognized numbers — but I received no scam calls for the rest of the week. I answered all of them except two because I was indisposed.

The first call was the hardest. When I pick up the phone, I’m used to the call being from a friend, family member, or someone I do business with, like my apartment’s leasing office or a service provider. Seeing an unknown number on my display gave me a little bit of anxiety. What would happen? Am I going to have to talk to someone? I’d rather be doing anything else. But I mustered up the resolve and answered.

“Hello,” I bravely said. The call ended. I didn’t even have to wait 30 seconds.

The second and third calls came when I wasn’t available to pick up the phone, but they were within 10 minutes of each other. Both went to voicemail, with an automated voice droning on about capital funding of some sort.

Another call, another chance to shine — but it was another spammer hanging up the second I said hello. It made me wonder if my phone etiquette had become outdated, but I persevered.

The vast majority of the remaining 13 phone calls were automated voice messages talking about some random thing I needed to sign up for. Many were about capital funding, car insurance, or debt consolidation. Oddly, one was about Verizon shipping support. (I’m a Verizon customer, but I hadn’t ordered anything.)

When I started this experiment, I thought I’d be speaking to actual people. Instead, most of my time was spent waiting for a recording to play and then hanging up — or saying “hello” repeatedly into the void until the caller hung up. If they didn’t hang up as soon as I picked up, that is.

However, there was one phone call where my patience paid off: a real-life human trying to scam me.

The scam

It started innocently enough: a phone number I didn’t recognize with the identifier “Verizon Agent.” Being a Verizon customer, it piqued my interest, so I answered.

“This is Verizon’s internal investigation team. We have reason to believe there was suspicious activity on your account, so we wanted to check in and do our due diligence.”

This sounded nearly normal to me. Family members on my plan had recently traveled internationally and had some issues with Verizon charging international data rates (which is why it’s important to get a phone service with a good international plan — one that works with an international eSIM provider). So I said “okay” and let him continue.

He told me this was for the phone line ending in the same four digits as my number. I just said “okay,” but I started to get confused. That was my number, not the family members who traveled. So it couldn’t be that.

“There was a purchase on your account and we just wanted to make sure you actually purchased it. It got flagged as a suspicious purchase so we’d like to confirm a couple things, that sound good?” I told him it sounded good.

“Two iPads were purchased from your account earlier today at about 2 p.m., did you make this purchase?” “No,” I said. I looked at the time — it was 2:04 p.m. This internal investigation team works quick! Maybe a little too quick.

He launched into a series of questions: Did I know anyone who purchased them? They were purchased in Texas — could anyone on my account be there? Does anyone have access to my account? Had I left my laptop or phone somewhere someone could access my Verizon login?

All my answers were simple no’s, but something felt off. Things were moving fast — I had barely learned that someone supposedly bought two iPads on my account, and there was a deluge of questions. I tried to keep my answers short and deadpan.

“It sounds like someone may have gotten access to your account. We’re going to send you a link to verify your account; it should arrive soon,” he said. A text arrived: “Verizon Alert: There’s a request to authenticate from the Verizon website. Please confirm or deny here.” It appeared in the same thread real Verizon messages use — but this felt off. He encouraged me to click the link.

Instead, I asked a question: “If someone purchased something on my account, why wasn’t I notified via text or email?” He paused, then said, “Great question, I was going to get to that. It’s possible your notifications are turned off or delayed. I can check.”

I was already checking. My Verizon account showed notifications were turned on. “They’re on,” I said. “Actually I have to get to a meeting — I’ll call back later.” There was no meeting. I just felt like I had to hang up, so I did — and called Verizon immediately.

The customer service rep said there was no suspicious activity. There was an authentication request, but no record of two iPads purchased. I gave them the phone number that called me. They looked it up — not theirs. In fact, they had no record of that number in their database. To them, the number didn’t exist — likely a spoofed or masked number used by scammers. If you Google that number, it shows as a Verizon store in Texas — a store Verizon has no record of as a real number.

Picking up spam calls isn’t worth it

At the end of this experiment, I learned what we already know: picking up spam calls isn’t worth it. Mostly, it’s a waste of time when you could be doing something useful — spending time with family or friends, working, reading, painting, cooking, or just pondering the universe.

On occasion, you’ll run into a human scammer trying to trick you into giving up personal information. It’s always important to hang up as soon as you can and call the legitimate number for whoever they claim to be. If they say they’re your phone provider — or even pose as a grandchild with an AI voice mask — hang up and call back.

Even more important, it’s good to have a phone service that helps you avoid these kinds of calls in the first place. If I had been using Ooma Home Phone service, I could block all calls not from my contacts and avoid this entire headache. My iPhone did a decent job labeling most unknown calls as spam, but the “Verizon Agent” who tried to scam me was labeled as an agent, not spam. So be wary — and get a good phone service.