A service where you pay someone to waste a scammers' time for you.

From r/SomebodyMakeThis · originally by u/Intelligent-Bottle22 · January 5, 2026

I have been getting spammed constantly by scammers. It's so tiring. I watch a lot of youtube videos, where people waste scammers' time. And so many of the comments say that we should do things like fund government call centers, to do what the youtubers are doing. It gave me an idea; what if there was a service where you pay someone to waste a scammers' time for you. Basically, you receive a text or email from the scammer, and you forward their contact info to the time waster. They waste the scammers time, and record a video of it, to send to you for proof. I feel like the more time these scammers are tied up talking to someone who is wasting their time, the less time they are going to spend scamming vulnerable people. And I've also heard that after you mess with a scammer, they tend to leave you alone for a bit. I'm not entirely sure about the legality of doing something like this. It was just a random idea I had. I would appreciate advice.

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u/ToneIndependent3414on 1/29/2026

I read an article a while back where someone in the UK got sick of scammers. He somehow managed to set up his number to charge callers per minute. Similar to when someone who is in prison calls, you answer the phone and it says “so and so from X place is calling. Do you accept the charges?” So when scammers called he would keep them talking as long as possible, knowing they were the ones getting charged per minute of the call. Not sure exactly how it worked. But I would do that if I knew how to set it up!