Honestly, this is why I got rid of YouTube premium when their prices increased. The amount of ads reduced my YouTube usage to only videos that I "really" wanted to watch. Try turning off your blocker if you want to decrease your consumption :-)

A trick I started using was asking the scammer for a challenge code to prove they where who they said they were (from my bank). The scammer was dumbfounded and hung up.

I agree it is always better to just hang up and call the bank yourself but it was pretty humorous.

I don’t get many calls, but a LOT of whatsapp messages. What i usually do is ask them if they know how to trade crypto and if they want to 10x their money - they quit immediately.

Related, a close friend of mine was looking for jobs and in a moment of desperation he got prayed on by someone asking all their personal information. No follow up. Not sure what the end game is there, however it might turn ugly.

I find your strategy - putting them off foot - is a very good deterrent and an effective way to get rid of most scammers quickly.

I am incredibly fascinated by how scammers work and their inventive - many of them would be very successful in a corporate environment, they are clearly very smart and capable, you wonder why they end up doing this for a living.