Since June 2021 I’ve received less than 10 scam phone calls. This is simultaneously amazing and ridiculous.

Scammers gotta scam is a trope I live by. But with all the YouTube scam baiters and Social Media content creators in this space, I am hopeful that scammers are starting to clean their lists up just a bit.

Think about it for a second. I’ve been creating blog posts for 4 years just from the idiots who call me. Every one of those calls has ended with me calling them a scammer. Some of those posts generated 70,000 hits per day. I even point out to my blog post calling them a scam is on the first page of Google when you search for their company name. Yet they still call me, despite my never signing up for anything. Calling me is taking an ad out, proudly admitting you are a scammer.

Now suddenly I’m not getting those 5-70 calls per week. Yes, I started this when I got upset that I’d averaged 10 calls per day for a week straight. Now I get less than two calls per month.

Phone companies are cracking down on scammers’ access to numbers. Telco’s are not doing enough, but every little bit helps. YouTube and social media influencers are busy pointing out the scams. But, I know for a fact that the South Asian scam call centers are still operating. Black market and dark web markets for Gift Cards are still busy. The only explanation is scammers are finally cleansing their lists of known troublemakers like little ol’ me.

Note that means if you have ever been scammed you are extraordinarily valuable to scammers. They know there’s gold in them thar hills. If you’ve been scammed once, they hope they can do you again as you try to recover your lost funds or have a slip in your vigilance.

My final observation is scams are up, while scams targeting me specifically are down.

Update 10 February 2022: I celebrated too soon. I’ve received a scam call every day since posting this. Seems the Amazon Refund Scam is on the rise. Calls from +66 42-381-4744 (Thailand!) and 0409 304 412