Turning the Tables On "Phone Tech Support" Scammers 210
mask.of.sanity writes A security pro has released a Metasploit module that can take over computers running the Ammyy Admin remote control software popular among "Hi this is Microsoft, there's a problem with your computer" tech support scammers. The hack detailed in Matthew Weeks' technical post works from the end-user, meaning victims can send scammers the hijacking exploit when they request access to their machines. Victims should provide scammers with their external IP addresses rather than their Ammyy identity numbers as the exploit was not yet built to run over the Ammyy cloud, according to the exploit readme. This is much more efficient than just playing along but "accidentally" being unable to follow their instructions.
External IP (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:External IP (Score:5, Insightful)
... Depends if your IP address is dynamic or not. In my case, all I have to do is reset the DSL modem/router and, presto ! New IP!
I am more concerned about the legality of it. Running a live exploit on their network may make some ISPs fidgety. Also not sure about the position of law enforcement agencies...
Re:External IP (Score:5, Funny)
I am more concerned about the legality of it. Running a live exploit on their network may make some ISPs fidgety. Also not sure about the position of law enforcement agencies...
The cops won't like the competition ... in Soviet Russia, law enforcement exploits YOU ... oh, wait ...
Re:External IP (Score:5, Insightful)
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... Depends if your IP address is dynamic or not. In my case, all I have to do is reset the DSL modem/router and, presto ! New IP!
I am more concerned about the legality of it. Running a live exploit on their network may make some ISPs fidgety. Also not sure about the position of law enforcement agencies...
Look up the "clean hands doctrine". There's a reason that you don't see street gangs suing a drug supplier over a missing shipment....
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Because they have guns and don't bother with the courts?
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Are you trying to imply that people using these exploits are street gangs? Or drug suppliers? :-P
I was more thinking about mob justice - sometimes, the people who were hanged really were innocent.
In a "darker" way, this could start an arms race, with scammers trying to take down machines and hitting innocent people and/or cyberwar getting started because of attacks on scammers and counter-attacks from the scammers tripping automated defense systems due to spiraling conflicts and increasingly sophisticated t
Re:External IP (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? What can you do with one IP address? On the flip side why do you think this is any worse than giving someone access via a cloud service after which they can look at your IP anyway?
216.34.181.45
Come at me bro!
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Unplug your DSL router/Cable modem over night. Someone else should get your IP in that time and you should get a new one when you wake up and turn it back on. Unless you have a static IP, in which case this is a terrible idea.
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Powering off the cable/DSL modem and changing the MAC address of whatever's plugged into it (NIC, router, etc.) is often sufficient, and much faster. When the modem powers back on, your "new device" will get a new lease with a new IP.
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Yeeaaah ... that's the IP to slashdot.org :)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Goatpot.
Re:External IP (Score:4, Interesting)
Yea but its a metasploit module so you run metasploit on some very disposable vm you have out on Amazons aws in the free tier.
Either have your revershell go back to that IP and forward it on your own system or just bank on tact these losers don't have the skills it would take recover your ip from your shell code in memory or see the outbond connection on their firewall and have it call your back directly.
These guys are following a script. Most of the actors probably don't know how to deal with things much outside that. They are using an off the self remote access tool and social engineering. If they could pwn your box without your help they'd skips the steps where they setup the bogus call center, train employees, pay to make a bunch of often long international phone calls, etc and move strait to the profit step.
If they can't get you to fall for the scam they probably are not very dangerous.
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It seems like the entire internet IS ALREADY ATTACKING MY ROUTERS.
What's one more lame scammer gonna do that isn't already being tried every 20ms or so?
Oh, and my external IP at home is dynamic, but the lease is tenacious. I would need to wait a while to get it to change. Like a week.
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They already have your IP address.
Love reading about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Myself, I would fear bad legal consequences if I did it, because hacking into their computers isn't going to be legal just because they are scammers.
Now telling them that you just hacked into their computers and asking them to open log files to show evidence, that would be fun.
Re:Love reading about it (Score:5, Insightful)
I will love reading about anyone who managed to destroy a call centre of these scammers and get them out of business. Myself, I would fear bad legal consequences if I did it, because hacking into their computers isn't going to be legal just because they are scammers. Now telling them that you just hacked into their computers and asking them to open log files to show evidence, that would be fun.
There's not really anything they can do apart from try to get revenge on your machine. "Hi international police, well we we're trying to scam this guy and he somehow managed to switch the flip and gutted our entire organisation........please stop laughing"
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International police? No, this is a job for the CYBER POLICE! [buzzfed.com]
You should point them to the proper authorities and tell them you'll be waiting with your wrists out :-D
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Crap, the Preview button is separated from the Submit, but I'm still an idiot. :-P
How about (Score:5, Insightful)
US: hang up
Done. Fuck this war.
Re:How about (Score:5, Funny)
I got called by one last Friday night. Kept him on the phone for almost an hour, playing along. Even gave him clues I wasn't on windows (ie, when he asked me to run eventviewer I described the output of top, including clueless worrying about zombie processes).
Finally told him I had to go pick up my daughter and that I'd been screwing with him. He called me a "miserable son of a bitch" and hung up.
Kinda felt that it was my duty to keep him occupied, after all each minute I was screwing with him was a minute he wasn't scamming some truly helpless user "out there" somewhere.
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... I'll just put you on hold while I boot up my computer. I'm afraid its really slow.
20 minutes later he hangs up and calls back. ... No its still booting I'm afraid. I'll just put you back on hold.
40 minutes later he finally gives up.
Re:How about (Score:4, Insightful)
I managed over an hour and a half the other day. I had to look up the different messages from Windows XP from online help pages. Basically imagine you are really really clueless but you have an IT expert son who has set up your Windows computer so you don't have the administrative privilages to do yourself any damage and all running of hacking software is blocked by some obscure anti-malware software that you don't understand yourself. It also helps if you are too clueless to use your mobile phone at the same time as typing on the computer.
You should manage to do at least 10 minutes of mindless work between each time you talk to them.
Never admit you are scamming them; the aim is to teach them to hang up on truely clueless people themselves depriving them of some of their most important audience.
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I managed over an hour and a half the other day.
I learned a fun one from a particularly annoying call.
Get them to repeat the messages. They rattle off the instructions, wait ten seconds, then ask them to repeat it. Alternatively, wait until they have rattled of the entire instruction, then slowly repeat the exact words from the beginning "first.. press.. the.. start.. button.. and.. type.. in.. "
Tell them you need to write it down first to make sure you do it correctly. Since you as the 'victim' don't want the infection to be worse you obviously shoul
Re:How about (Score:5, Funny)
You want this:
http://itslenny.com/ [itslenny.com]
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Never admit you are scamming them
How are you scamming them?
the aim is to teach them to hang up on truely clueless people themselves depriving them of some of their most important audience
Again, I don't get it. What are you teaching them? To hang up on true suckers? Silly, that's what they're after.
If everyone would just accept that it's impossible to 'get a call from microsoft out of the blue' or any other 'I'm just calling to help you' bullshit, then this whole thing would end. So rather than spend 30, 40, or 50 minutes on the phone, "scamming" these people, spend 10 or 15 minutes calling all of your friends and family that would probably be scammed, let th
Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the amazing thing is they feel they have a right to be angry.
Dude, you called me with the express intent of scamming me ... you seriously expect me to treat you like a human being?
I don't think so.
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You know, the amazing thing is they feel they have a right to be angry.
You're using a western mindset.
He's some impoverished guy in India desperate to make a few rupees from someone who, in his eyes, is very wealthy.
The 'wealthy' person has wasted his time, so he's angry. His 'boss' will probably yell at him for being unsuccessful, so he's angry.
It's not cut-and-dry like you might think.
Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's NMFP [urbandictionary.com] ... he knows damned well that what he's doing is illegal, and would have no sympathy for me if I fell victim. He is certainly aware of the fact that he's not offering me a useful service. You couldn't possibly train someone to do that scam without explaining it to them.
So, he may well have convinced himself that there's no harm if he scams us a little.
But, I don't actually give a crap about his feelings.
If what he's doing is so noble and justified, call someone in India, see if they are interested.
From me, he gets a big "fuck off".
If he's expecting me to say "oh, gee, the poor cute little Indian is just trying to make a buck", he's sadly mistaken, and should expect the kind of animosity he gets.
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Yes is that cut and dry. This a person who has phoned you up with the intent to do you harm. His/Her reasons don't matter. (S)He has no right to try and defraud you. (S)He isn't stupid either, he knows the folks (s)he is working for are fraudsters and (s)he knows this and is participating anyway.
If this person is so desperately poor than they should be calling and asking for charity. This is malicious behavior and it deserves an in kind response.
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You all need to learn to enjoy the sweet delicious lulz, and show your appreciation by laughing while they curse!
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Have you heard these calls before? Have you seen transcripts?
There is no conceivable way you could be doing that scam without knowing you're lying. They're asking for access to your computer, and showing you stuff they'd be able to see on their own computer. If any of these people believe they're doing magical cold-call tech support, they're so incredibly stupid as to deserve conte
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THEM: Hi this is Microsoft and...
US: hang up
Done. Fuck this war.
Then they call back and say "don't you care about your computer?" (I really wish I was kidding, but this really did happen).
I usually follow your method actually, but this tedious shit still gets old pretty quick. Time-wasting, parasitic little fuckers.
Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)
THEM: Hi this is Microsoft and...
US: hang up
Done. Fuck this war.
That's exactly what they want. It's the same reason that scammers say they are from nigeria even when they aren't.
They don't want to talk to you. They want the non-gullible to hang up as quickly as possible so they can quickly find
the little old lady who they can steal from. They called my mom and luckily she had 2 things going for her. First,
she doesn't know enough to actually follow their instructions and second, she called me. Otherwise she would
probably be out some money and I would be left cleaning up the mess. So sure, it's easier to hang up on them but
you are actually doing them a favor and helping them out by doing so.
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Seems like a solid plan to me.
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That's not really correct. That only works if everyone in the world calls their mother, father, aunt, grandma, etc, which is obviously never going to happen. So again, all you've done is moved the scammer on quickly to his next target. Think of it this way: if it takes this guy an hour to scam someone, he spends an average of 30 minutes finding each new mark that leads to a cash scamming, and he works 8 hours per day, on average he will scan 5 to 6 people per day. If you waste an hour of his time, you'
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That only works if everyone in the world calls their mother, father, aunt, grandma, etc, which is obviously never going to happen.
Why not? I can't imagine being more backwards than feeling more like staying on the phone with a scammer for an hour, than your own family for 2 minutes.
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No, failure to take hostile action isn't a favor; it's neutrality. Installing their malware would be a favor. I can appreciate those with the time and energy to take fight to this enemy (good on you!), but I have other battles to fight with my (however high) limited anger.
The problem with this enemy, which makes it so hard to care, is how irrelevant they are. So they call people about bullshit
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The bizarre thing is that I've had several argue with me for 10 minutes even after we've got to the point when I'm saying 'Look I know this is a scam, you should reall stop doing this and do something else" they have vociferously denied that they were scammers, even when I'm saying "I don't understand why you're continuing with this call".
Bizarre.
Re:How about (Score:5, Funny)
These people call my mother incessently. Every other day or so I hear her yelling at her phone "you are not really with windows, windows doesn't call" (yes they say they are calling "from windows" lol).
I just saw this and ran down to show her, not so much for the exploit but the idea of playing mickey the dunce and keeping them on the phone for as long as possible. Lol she has a true talent for annoying tech support. Hell I once got a call from a guy at the help desk "I just got off the phone with your mother" "really?" "yah down in radiology right? I was on the phone for 45 minutes and had to send a technition out because I couldn't get her to plug the ethernet cable back into the wall" "now, she told you she is blind right?" "No she....what the fuck!"
Seriously.... I think I just punished them good suggesting she keep a log of how long she can keep them on the phone for.
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And, if you're lucky enough to have a telephone which lets you block callers, you can do that.
Setting our home phone to drop calls from "Unknown" and "Private" callers killed a lot of this, and being able to block specific callers also helps. If you're calling me from a Private number, I'm not interested.
Of course, they just keep adding new fake numbers, so it's a losing battle.
I would say 95% of all of our incoming calls are crap ... it's gotten to the point if
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We use Google Voice for our "home" phone number. When a call comes in, it rings our phones and we have the option to answer or send it to voicemail (where we can listen in and answer at any point). The exception to this is that we can mark a number as "spam." If we do this, they get a "This number is no longer in service" message and our phone doesn't ring. Double benefit in that we don't get harassed by them and they might just take us off their list for having a non-working number.
How about THIS? (Score:2)
I have never gotten one of these calls. But I have gotten a few calls like this:
[Phone vibrates. I see the non-local calling number. Reject and block.]
That's the new, lazy version. Until a few weeks ago, I had many of these:
[Phone vibrates. I look at the non-local calling number and wonder who that could be. Google the number and apparently every non-local number that ever calls me, is associated with robocalling. Reject. They call again a few days later. Reject and block. Then a few days later I loo
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You have a problem on your Linux desktop (Score:2)
Them: Hi This is Microsoft. You have a problem on your desktop
Me: Oh! Wow! how do we fix it?
Them: Do you see your START button?
Me: (Looking over my Gnome Desktop on my Fedora workstation...) No.
Them: Just look on you lower left.
Me: I have ACTIVITIES on the upper Left.
Them: That must be it. Pull down the menu from that START Button.
Me: OK
Them: Do you see the RUN item
Me: No...
And they get more and more frustrated by this looser who can't seem to work the START menu.
I really try to follow their instructions.
Af
What is wrong with people? (Score:2)
Re:What is wrong with people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Reading over your comment it just occurred to me that a lot of novice users could very well potentially have an argument for why they would believe that Microsoft "knows" of their problems -- every time Windows XP had some process crash it would pop up a modal asking if you wanted to send a crash report to Microsoft. Pretty much every OS I've worked on does this, Ubuntu will even ask if you want to report a problem.
If I never used, or rarely used a computer and didn't come across these messages often it would not be a large jump of logic to presume that clicking "yes" on that modal would open a ticket on some help desk at Microsoft and some lowly tech-support would call you up some time in the future to fix the issue for you.
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Sadly, not everybody has a good working knowledge of computers, and don't have enough street-smarts to spot the clues of a scam.
Lots of older people who really don't know much about their computer, and are completely unaware this is an ongoing scam fall prey to it. They just think it's a nice person offering to solve a problem for them.
It's like any other form of spam or scam ... you only need a very small percentage of people to fall
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You'd think people wouldn't get taken in by those Nigerian 419 scams as well, but they keep falling for requests to send money to make money.
You would think they'd stop before they'd send away $25,000 or more, but...
I can understand elderly folks falling for the "Hi I'm your grandson stuck in the middle of nowhere" scams, but the people who traditionally fall for the 419s know they don't have grandkids, and typically middle-aged people.
I guess greed blinds.
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The problem, once you've fallen for the Nigerian scammers, is that it can be hard to admit you've been scammed and have lost money. You can either admit that and realize you were an idiot, or keep believing that this $1,000 you're sending will finally unlock those millions that are "obviously" coming your way. The deeper these people fall for these scams, the harder it can be to admit that it was a scam and that there never were mi
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They called my father and he almost fell for it. He got wise and called me when they said they were going to have him install software so they could remote in. He had just enough sense to know NOT to do that without asking me. He had told me a similar thing. It sounded fishy, but he was having trouble with Microsoft Office and so thought maybe this was related to it. When my response was "Hang up!", he actually argued with me "But what if they are legitimate?" Finally, he accepted that it was a scam a
Start button? (Score:3)
Them: Hello, this is Microsoft. We have detected a problem with your computer.
Me: Really? And you're calling to help me?
Them: Yes of course. Do you see your "start" button?
Me: No I don't see any "start" button.
Them: It's in the lower left corner.
Me: I have a button in the upper left corner that says "OS/2 Warp"
Them: Asshole. (hangs up)
What spam calls? (Score:2)
Re:What spam calls? (Score:5, Insightful)
Scammers, by definition, do not follow the law. What makes you think they'd concern themselves with something as petty as a Do No call law?
And yes, you should consider yourself lucky. These kinds of calls are becoming more frequent and MUCH more aggressive. I had one scammer call me back over a hundred times in one day when I hung up on him. I eventually just routed all incoming calls to my fax machine.
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A few years ago, it was the car warranty scam. Landline, cell, DNC list....does not matter. Recently, home security scams. I got 2 yesterday. 1 on the landline DNC'd number, one on the cell.
I'm just waiting for one of these virus calls, so I can screw with him.
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Well played.
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Well played.
Well maybe I'm lucky, but I for sure am not going to post my real # on a site like this.
What Microsoft could do (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing Microsoft could do easily and cheaply, which would eventually end this "Calling you from Windows and you have a virus" scam, is to have a short mention about this being a scam on the front page of their website. A single sentence would suffice.
When you get called by the indian call center employee, who for most of them believe they are working for a legitimate business, mention how the caller is NOT really affiliated with Microsoft because their website say it's a scam. "See for yourself !" and hang up.
The actual pirates can probably not do the mass phone call themselves and still rack up enough money, which is why they hire call centres to do it for them, and why they also take precautions to show them some pretense of legitimacy. If the call centres stop working with them they'll go away.
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In Marketplace’s undercover investigation, a Karachi call centre supervisor was caught on camera reassuring a new hire that they can’t be caught.
"There is no need to worry," he says. "The customer will not be able to report us. They can’t trace us."
Employees are also told to say they’re calling from Ontario, and the callers used fake names.
They know that they're lying. They know they're running scams. Screw them.
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what is the default home page in IE? That would be the place to put a warning..
I believe it's still MSN.com... so unless the text stating the warning is a link that generates ad revenue, they wouldn't think of putting it on the home page.
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M$ won't care, it's more money for them when your computer gets screwed up and you have to (a) call M$ tech support (b) buy a new PC (c) buy another M$ license (d) take your pc to a repair shop.
I am going to go ahead and make an educated guess that Microsoft has done more to improve computer security for gullible people than you have.
I'm not saying it's perfect--but it's a lot more secure than it used to be, and they want it to be secure, and they spend a lot of money on making machines secure.
Start Button ? (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Really?
Them: Yes of course. Do you see your "start" button?
Me: No
Them: It's in the lower left corner.
Me:The lower left corner of what ?
Them: The lower left corner of your computer.
Me: The lower left corner?...........when viewed from where ?
Them: From the front.
Me: OK, let me see.....All I see is a little sticker that says Intel Inside on the lower left corner.
Them: I don't understand.
Me: The computer has a little sticker on the lower left corner. but no start button.
Them: No, I mean the lower left corner of your monitor.
Me: Wait I'll have a look..........I don't have a start button on the lower left corner of my monitor either. I do see a little sticker that says "Infant Optics" (it's a baby monitor) Them: click
Re:Start Button ? (Score:4, Funny)
Next time you get the call, you could try this approach:
You: Wait, you know I have a computer? Are you my parole officer? I've been banned from using electronic devices due to my recent conviction. If you're accessing my computer, that makes you an accomplice. Per the plea agreement, we both going get 20 years in a federal prison. The NSA is probably now tracking us both.
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Oh, I LIKE that one!!! I may have to try that.
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it may be a windows key on my keyboard... but it doesn't bring up anything when I hold it down and press 'r'... that throws them... they get quite angry as I keep telling them that nothing happens and there is no start menu either on the screen, just a stylised bird... and that when I do click that icon I don't see a control panel choice...
Running Lubuntu LTS with LXDE...
TeamViewer (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows is updating (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to get these scammers on the line for as long as possible, but without wasting my time. So far, what I've seen to work well was "Oh, my computer just crashed, I need to reboot" and "Now windows is applying updates". This means they'll wait without me having to think of stuff to tell them. Any other effective tricks?
Does your mother know? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've taken to asking them questions like:
Does your mother know that you spend your days trying to steal money from people much like her? How does she feel about that?
How does it feel knowing that every minute you're at work, you're making the world a worse place to live? Do you sleep well at night?
etc.
I once had the employee's manager call me to chew me out for making the employee feel bad. Hopefully he quit.
I just give them access (Score:5, Funny)
I keep an old XP laptop loaded with furry porn, pictures of cows and pigs being slaughtered, BDSM porn, transsexual midget porn, stuff from rotten.com/ogrish like beheadings, gential mutilation, etc., set on random rotate every second for the desktop with a nice fading transition, everything locked except the remote assistance tool, and when they call I put that machine live and let them in.
The extortion begins, and then they see something that invariably offends the piss out of them while they're forced to watch a constantly-changing desktop wallpaper they can't stop, and the extortion ends with me laughing in their ears.
Endless entertainment. I even got a "You're the sickest thing existing on this planet." from some chick that was playing the scam.
I lol'd hard at that one.
Can't even get their names right... (Score:3)
Most important line in the tech report (Score:2)
No scammer group has ever called me, and I have never used this except to test it and in demonstrations.
So has anyone actually used this module successfully in the real world?
India: Scammer country (Score:4)
ugh, this is a real disgrace on India. I think this scamming here is frequent from India because there is little to no regulation, law or enforcement of it if there were one about scamming 'foreigners'.
This is how most of the Indian GDP were composed of.
It is part of their culture. In the university that I went to, 90% of the Indians are cheating. This is in a electrical engineering master's program.
That's why our organization will not hire any H1Bs.
Lots of fun (Score:2)
Much bettern than my idea (Score:2)
I have been using the "Yes..and" Improv method of Step In.
"What? Again? My damn kid put a virus on the computer again? Boy!! Get your Ass down here now... yes you... talk to this guy... WTF (whack)" [pull phone away from head, change voice "No Dad, that hurts, let go, stop, ow ow" "You get the phone with this guy right now and fix this.... and after we're going to have a talk...."
or -- two old people "Ethel - do you understand what this guy wants? Something about a computer... hmm.. our grandson was
Re:Rife in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
"Hi, we've detected a virus on your machine etc etc"
"Yes, that's mine, I've been testing it. Can you tell me how and when it was detected please?"
".....[click]beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
Re: (Score:3)
"Hi, we've detected a virus on your machine etc etc"
"How do you know?"
"We have a file about you and your computer."
"Yea? What's my name?"
".....[click]beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
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I've had a similar experience - many times.
First of I am not a lawyer - but I can read Wikipedia :-)
So when we get to "we've detected a problem with your computer" I ask "how?" and get a stream of babble about seeing data which looks like a virus.
Then I ask innocently -- "so you can look at my traffic?" "oh yes and you definitely have a virus - we can see from how your PC is behaving" "so you can look at my PC?" "Oh yes"
I always ask - "are you sure about this?" to allow them to dig themselves even deeper
Re:one did ring back and shout abuse (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Hi, we've detected a virus on your machine etc etc"
"Which one? Is it my old [OS] system downstairs, or the newer one upstairs running [OS]?"
".....[click]beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
For best results, pick semi-recent Windows versions OSes (XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 8.1) that you aren't actually running and see if they actually try to guess which one it is, then see how they react when you casually mention that it's been turned off for the past several months or suffered from a hardware failure.
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My record was 16 minutes, the sucker on the other end got more and more frustrated and eventually swore at me and hung up.
I've told them I can't go to my computer because I had a broken leg and couldn't get out of bed.
I've told them I don't have a keyboard, I use a touchscreen.
Most recently, I let the operator get through to the stage where they wanted to connect, then I told her I knew it was a scam, she should be ashamed of herself for telling lies, and what would her mother think? That one got 3 seconds
Re:Rife in the UK (Score:5, Funny)
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oh noes (Score:2)
Your computer has performed an illegal operation
You owe a civil fine of $150, please to be sending to me C/O the Prince of Nigeria or I will have to be sending the police to your house.
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It's not going to be illegal to scam a scammer, as in order for the authorities to know about it the hackers would have to identify themselves to them, something they would never do.
I hope you don't generally live by the rule that "if you can't get caught, it's not illegal."
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Haw haw!
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I wonder is a self-defense or "stand your ground" defense could be used if you were ever charged for hacking them when they were trying to hack / scam you....
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I haven't gotten any of these calls either. I'm not saying that I want these calls to start coming in, but I'd sure have some fun with it if they did.
So, I wonder. I only have a cell phone... are those that are receiving these calls on a regular basis only getting them on land lines, or am I just lucky to not be getting them on my cell phone?
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So, why do you waste money on the phone?
It provides a convenient phone number to provide to people who require one but to whom you don't want to talk, e.g. charitable organizations that will pester you to increase your donation. Turn the ringer off, give it an answering machine or similar service, and let people leave messages which you pick up later.
(It may also work better for speakerphone calls than a mobile phone.)
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If they're cold calling, they're scammers. 90%+ certainty. Some of them may not know it. Perhaps.