406-566-8477

THE BAD NEWS: Card Services calls aren't going to stop anytime soon.

THE GOOD NEWS: You can retaliate, reduce the misery, and even have some fun.

RETALIATE:

Waste these turkeys' time. Keep them on the line by acting like an interested prospect. Give them bogus data, including a combination of two different credit card numbers, scrambled Social Security digits, and a modified ZIP Code. Important: provide a credit card company's real 800 number.

After they call the credit card company, you can give them the same credit card info as before with two of the numbers transposed, thus causing them to make a second verification call. Or you can respond, "Guess what ... H-O-O-N-N-K-K [from a $6 air horn] you've been PRANKED! Call back tomorrow for more bullshot." Now they're the butt of your joke.

REDUCE THE MISERY:

Landlines. Enroll for the free service at nomorobo.com. Simultaneous ringing, a free feature many providers offer, enables nomorobo to receive, answer and, after one ring, automatically hang up on nuisance telephone numbers.

Cell phones. Block the number, an option that becomes available on the iPhone if you click on the "i" on the right in the list of recent calls and scroll to the bottom. Unfortunately, Card Services will keep calling from new spoofed numbers, which eventually should motivate you to retaliate.

HAVE FUN:

Turning the tables on the perpetrators with mischievous deception and the news they've been duped provides instantaneous vigilante satisfaction. Plus you serve your fellow call recipients by slowing down this evil operation's efforts to defraud them.

Caller type: Telemarketer
Caller: Barbara
Company: card services
Number: 406-566-8477

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