I never got the feeling the products mentioned could be used in such a manner.

Also, telemarketers using pre-recorded lines is nothing new. You can hear it in their cadence and inflection - it doesn't sound right. (Admittedly, an experienced editor and voice actor might find it easier to spot.)

You can always throw it a loop. Speak a different language, or ask an unexpected question, like, 'What's 3+5?' or, 'Say 'banana.'"

In general, though, you would need a complete set of phonemes in the victim's voice, which you're not going to get simply by calling someone. You'd need them reading something like The Rainbow Passage or Comma Gets a Cure, which generates the proper sounds.

My mother, who is 89, last year received a phone-call from my "nephew" where he said he had been in a car-crash and the police thought he was at fault, but was not, but needed several hundred dollars immediately to consult a lawyer. My mom said it sounded like him, and he sounded very afraid, but somehow she kept her cool and told him to "call his father."

These phone scams with victims in an accident very popular in Germany right now. Mostly targeting elderly people

I've gotten the, 'help, I'm in South America and thieves took my wallet' e-mail a few times.

I watched a ted talk a couple months ago. It was about email scammers, but I think the same thing applies to phone scammers. The guy advocates waisting there time. It makes it harder for them to make a buck if you can keep them on the phone for 15 minutes, a half hour or more. Someone on here posted about doing that, I think it may have been @randulo 🎷🎸 But it may have been someone else.

There are a lot of YouTube videos about this, especially wasting their time. But today, they're not paying for the calls, so it's wasting your time and theirs. There was a voicemail system that imitated a doddering senior, I can't recall the name. It just replied in non-sequitor phrases after any silence on the other end.