If I were to grab some old computers that have literally no files on them besides windows OS, is that a safe way to scambait w/ a vpn?
If they were to syskey/delete anything, i could just reformat. Not like they would ever get near my real pc.
I’m new so just had the idea 
This is a solid plan, just make sure the hard drive is formatted so its cleared of any PII and use a vpn so they can’t target your IP. Using a VoIP or a proxy number is also necessary as usual. The risk in using this instead of a VM is that if the scammer infects you with malware, there is a greater risk of it spreading to your network, but as long as you’re prudent and keep your firewalls and AV up to date you should be fine. Ping me if you have any more questions.
Thank you!
If anyone else has any ideas, feel free. I’m all ears.
Make a drive image and restore from that instead of re-installing. Delete Syskey too, or replace it with an abusive popup window 
Its about 1000% better running it on a VM, behind a firewalled isolated network connection.
Because even when they are on a VM/Physical machine a simple traceroute will show the “hops” taken to get to the internet. Thus showing that it goes through two networks.
Always use a VM + VPN. Its too easy to run EternalBlue etc.
Your normal unprotected LAN: 192.168.50.0 /24
Your VM lan: 10.0.0.0 /24
The hops shown via traceroute:
Tracing route to 10.1.1.1 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.0.0.254 [VM ROUTER]
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 [INTERNET/LAN Router]
3 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 8.8.8.8