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>The person being called hangs up the phone, but the scammer does not. Since the scammer initiated the phone call they're keeping that line open.

Is that a some UK specific thing? Because in Moscow hanging up the phone breaks connection at any side. Pretty sure that it was this way since soviet times.

Of course scammers can easily physically connect to your wire so analogue connections are totally insecure for communicating with bank anyway.



I've had this happen in the US, but only if the phone is picked up again within 1-2 seconds. Presumably there's a timeout somewhere (whether deliberately implemented or as a side effect of reactance on the network) that can be different in different systems.


I think it's UK specific. I've heard people in the US say it doesn't happen for them.


This has some nice elucidation of what is happening:

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/100268/does-hang...

It's a tradition!


As an old person my memory is that this phenomenon used to be relatively commonplace in the US as well, and I remember people abusing it to make prank calls and the like. Not sure if I've thought about it since the 80's.




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