‘Can you hear me?' Don't answer that!

Left several voice messages asking "Are You There"? Same voice every time but different #s show up on phone. I do not pick up If I don't know the name or #. Scum callers, if caught, should be given hard labor if convicted.

Hi there, friend,

Y'say you got a phone call and the guy on the other end forced you to say "yes", even when you tried to avoid such an answer?

Y'say you did not say "oui" or "ja" or "si", or even "yea" or "okey-dokey", or "roger", but you might have said "10-4, old buddy", and he then said "totally"?

Y'say your now owe the IRS lots of money, and you have to pay it off with iTune cards, and your phone bill shows 87 long distance calls to Lower Slobbovia at a rate of $16 a minute, and somebody is claiming you damaged their car and insulted their underage daughter, and your microsoft license expired and the FBI is charging you for a sign to put in your front yard?

Y'say you are almost absolutely sure you did not give the caller any of your financial or ID information, but you might have mentioned your credit / debit card number in passing, along with your SSAN, but things are a bit hazy about that call, because the guy was such a sweet talker, and lots of things were discussed, and you were concentrating so hard on not saying "yes" that you might have revealed that information?

Y'say somebody told you that Snopes said NOBODY has proven a financial loss due to a simple "yes", but who can believe that ol' wet blanket, anyway, because you saw the "yes scam" on the Internet, and everything on the Internet must be true, specially stuff that is such a widespred rumor without supportive facts.

Is that whats troubling ya, friend?

Well, lift up your head, and take a walk in the sun, and tell your tale in 800notes, and gladly accept your invitation to the 99% Nonreturn Club to show you will never give up, never give up, never give up ... the ship.

(Apologies to The Old Philosopher)

Even better, educate yourself about scam phone calls, either here or at someplace like
http://phonehelp.2truth.com/facts.html

Remember to return here, to 800notes.com, after you look at any of the information at that site, either to post more information, or to let us know you avoided the scam.

There's always simply saying "No", "I don't KNOW", "Who wants to KNOW", "Why?", "Huh?", "What?", "Duhhhhhh......" to every question.  Maybe we could have the Waste The Scammer's Time Olympics.

"You'll show them where to get off!
You'll never give up!
Never give up!
Never give up...
That ship!"

You could just not answer calls from unknown phone numbers.

California is a two-party consent state. Penal Code 632 et seq. make it illegal [misdemeanor] to surreptitiously record a call. The best thing about P.C. 637.2 is that an illegal recording carries a flat $5,000 statutory penalty per call - for those suing telemarketers, the extra "nickel" is very nice. I've never heard about an out-of-state surreptitious recorder getting criminally prosecuted. However, Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, 39 Cal.4th  95 (2006) held that CA's law protecting privacy rights prevailed over Georgia's one-party consent statute. Kearney was suing for the statutory penalty as the class rep in a putative class action. Last time I read the case I again didn't see any mention of criminal penalties for the out-of-state stockbrokers, just the $$ penalty.

Neither person in the reply chain mentioned California or any other state. I can be charitable in presuming that you've offered one example of state law application. The Code provides relief per violation and not "call", which I'd guess opens multiple violations during each call like the TCPA. I am, however, seeing one opinion that it's meant to apply per action and not generate a runaway meal ticket for plaintiff attorneys. Also, the proper phrase is "all party consent" so that conference and other multi-party calls are included.

Double-T was correct, Federal law favors single party consent. We need one which plainly overrides any "Wiretap Act" style of complaint in cases where unannounced recordings were made strictly to preserve one's civil rights.

I just happened to be following the conversations recently posted and saw your post.  First, I would like to point out that they needed more than that "yes" to authorize the charge.  They needed your name, credit company name, and bank account number.  Further, if someone had all that information, why would they need your voice to say "yes"?  Anyone could do that.  Also, no one has been able to provide one single reliable, verifiable story of someone who was actually scammed that way.  Not one in the 2 years since this scam has allegedly been running.  That seems awfully strange to me.  Not one single report?

In the scenario of bill payment by phone, the verbal affirmation is the "signature" needed to complete the transaction for compliance with the E-SIGN Act. The card issuer and its customer have long ago agreed that they don't exclusively need paper bills and paper checks to settle an account balance.

This is quite different from manipulation of verbal responses for a bill cramming scheme, which is what prompted that FCC advisory and led to the present "say yes" paranoia. For some reason beyond me, practically anything can be charged to a phone bill without the barriers mentioned above, simply by obtaining and abusing a person's phone number. In recent years, the FCC has been hosing phone carriers for both facilitating and profiting unfairly from crammers. Probably those cases were lingering in the memory of Commissioners this March as their "beware yes" alert was issued. I don't think they were seeing any runaway epidemic of the practice.

The news reports I read were that both the BBB and the FTC were inundated with phone calls from people about this alleged scam.  It sounded more to me as if someone came up with this idea and then tweeted it out.  It of course got retweeted and eventually people thought it was real.

I live in SoCal. I experienced that exact scenario earlier this year. I was in a deposition as a witness. I mentioned that the corporate lawyer threatened me with contempt of court - jail  when I called to get a 2 week delay because I was recovering from a medical procedure. All hell broke loose. She screamed " I did not threaten you with contempt of court". I said yes you did. She them said, "Suppose I told you that I recorded our phone call. Do you want to change your testimony?".  I said,"Well, then I suppose that you can put that recording into evidence and we can see who was telling the truth. BTW, did you get my permission to record our conversation? CA is a 2 party state. I am not a lawyer, but if you recorded my call illegally while acting as an officer of the court, is that grounds for disbarment? The subject was immediatly dropped.

} "Suppose I told you that I recorded our phone call. Do you want to change your testimony?"

"Suppose I bring my recording and I synchronize it below yours on my editing system timeline. Is every waveform going to match, or would you rather change your plan to a consent judgment in my favor?" -- Something like that would be my answer, anyway. If my state ever turns "all party consent", I'm packing to relocate.

I almost fell for this, but my "spidey-sense" had me simply asking "who is this?" over and over, until I realized it was a recording and then gave them an answer that they can't use anywhere for anything.  :)

I've been in the same boat and never worried about answering 'yes', but I generally don't answer unknown calls. Just saying 'yes' has no meaning all by itself. If thats all it takes to scam someone is just the word 'yes' then scammers wouldn't bother calling people, they would just say 'yes' themselves, since there is no voice database to prove it was you.
Real business is conducted by verifying you are the authorized person to make a payment over the phone and  a simple "yes" is not going to be enough to do that.

Phishing seems the most reasonable cause for those robo-call pre-recorded questions. Scammers still look for "live' numbers and people who press buttons or answer questions. Those "potential victim"  lists are much more valuable to scammers than any recording of the word "yes", unless you gave some personal identifiable info to go with that "yes".

I answer unknown calls (when I do answer) with "Who's calling?" and end the call if they refuse to say who they are.

Has anyone been documented (as in an actual police report or court case) defrauded using this technique?

I find it somewhat less than credible that a scammer would go to the trouble of recording a voice, editing the audio, etc., just to make a phony charge to an account or sell you something you didn't order.

There seem to be a lot of warnings but no actual evidence that crimes are being committed in this manner.

I'm not saying it's impossible but I'd really lke to see some proof that this isn't just an urban legend like the "don't flash your headlights at a car with its headlights off or you'll be murdered" legend (see Snopes).

Proof, anyone?