Your mum's in trouble, don't hang up

1Watch

The call

Every word of that was chosen to stop you thinking. So think now.

2The idea

Urgency is the tell

This works on adults every day, because it is built to. Panic first, then a request, then ‘don’t hang up’. Real emergencies do not need you to stay on the line. Fakes do, because hanging up is how you check.

A real hospital does not need a code from your phone. A real bank does not either. A real friend of your mum’s would tell you which hospital and let you ring back. The only thing every fake call has in common is that it needs you to stay on this call and not make another one.

3The idea

The Emergency Order, on a phone call

Am I safe? Yes. It is a phone. Nothing on it can reach you.
Call. Say the sentence, hang up, and ring the real number: Mum’s saved number, or the bank’s number off the card, never the number that just rang you.
Do what they say. The real person on the real number tells you what is true.
Write it down. The number that called, the time, what they said.

The sentence that ends the call is: I’m going to hang up and call her back. You do not wait for permission. If it was real, the real number says so in two minutes. If it was not, you were never on the line long enough for it to matter.

4The idea

Watch it work once

Sofia, home alone at five. Unknown number. ‘This is the hospital, your mum’s been brought in, she’s asking for you, I need the code that’s just come to your phone to confirm you’re next of kin, quickly.’ Sofia’s stomach drops. She says: I’m going to hang up and call her back. She hangs up.

Mum answers from the car. Fine. Annoyed at traffic. Sofia writes the number and the time on the pad by the kettle. Four minutes, start to finish, and the only thing she gave the caller was nothing. Mum reports the number that evening.

5Your turn

Three calls

The score is not whether you spotted it. It is how quickly you put the phone down.

6Decide

The voice says your mum is hurt and you need to stay on the line. What do you do?

7Say it

The sentence that ends the call

You do not wait for permission to hang up. You say it, you do it, and then you dial the number you already have.

8Find them

Which of these are tells on a call?

Tap the ones that count.

9Look

Write it down

The last step of the Emergency Order. Three lines. It is what a parent needs to report it, and it takes twenty seconds while you are waiting for Mum to pick up.

10Do it

Before you leave this page