One other point to consider. Suppose these crooks want us to be so focused on not saying that one word that we forget and tell them everything else? Maybe that was the whole plan all along.
Black man calls ( not being racist..but it clearly is!) says hello to wait til you answer. When you do, automated msg for National Warranty Service comes on. Do not speak! Hang up immediately! They are recording your responses to gain authorization fraudulently. Then use that information to sign you up for all kinds of things and you just authorized them! Just hang up!
The oft report scam of recording a verbal "yes" in order to "gain authorization fraudulently" has never actually been shown to have occurred, and appears to be more of an urban myth (see Snopes, etc.). Why would anyone who is going to FRAUDULENTLY claim you authorized something using only a recording of only one word need YOUR actual voice to make that false claim? It will not hold up in a court case in any event, and they rare likely quite aware of that.
Nevertheless, this caller is very likely a scam artist and you should not give them any information. Don't agree to any products or services from them -- or any unsolicited caller -- but also don't be overly paranoid about just uttering the word "yes" to an innocuous question.
Even though it has not yet been documented of a case where someone has been scammed simply by uttering a YES, its still good practice to always be alert when questions requiring a 'yes' are asked repetitively or even when asked a question that doesn't sound right for someone to be asking right from the start.
Scammers are learning from their mistakes and perfecting their scam tactics, so it doesn't hurt to tell people to be careful when answering to a YES type question. You never know what they come up with until someone falls victim and you don't want to be the first documented case!
If I went along with that line of thinking, I would have to eliminate the word "yes" from my vocabulary. After all, everyone has a smart phone these days. Every smart phone has the capability of recording. So, you go into a restaurant, the waitress asks "Do you want coffee?", and you answer "yes". So now she goes back and splices the yes reply into the question "Do you want to give me a 1000 dollar tip?" answer "yes". And I can come up with a thousand more scenarios exactly like that. As that person pointed out, why would they need an exact recording of your voice? The phone company doesn't have a recording of it, neither does the bank. Oh, and since when did you ever open up a banking or credit card account with nothing more than a simple "yes"?
This myth got started on social media and spread all over. I have a big problem with perpetuating a myth where no one has ever been scammed out of one dollar when real scams are still going strong. The longer this myth stays at the forefront, the less attention is paid to real scams where people have lost real money to the tune of millions such as the IRS scam, the Microsoft tech scam, etc, etc.
lol, no that wasn't what I was saying. I'm not condoning anyone to perpetuate the myth of being afraid to answer with a yes to a question. I personally can't see how a simple 'yes' could be used to scam.
My point was simply to be alert about any call you get that starts off asking questions, whether its repetitively asking 'yes' type questions or questions in general. Its usually an unwanted caller who starts off asking questions and thats a sign that you might want to pay closer attention to whats going on with the call, so you don't get scammed. Who knows whats next on the scammers agenda and it doesn't hurt for people to be alert of a possible new scam.