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Number of Robocalls Placed in the US Surged By 50 Percent in the First Half of This Year (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader has shared an NBC report, which explores the state of robocalls in the United States. The report, which shares several anecdotes, also cites data from YouMail, a company that provides voicemail and call-blocking services, according to which the number of robocalls placed nationwide increased by 50 percent from February to July this year. From the report: Robo-dialed and unwanted telemarketing calls were the top consumer complaint to the Federal Communications Commission last year, and they are again this year. This puts those complaints ahead of billing disputes, service availability and program indecency.
Not all robocalls are bad. Some, like appointment reminders and flight updates, are usually welcome. But robocall scams, such as the wave of calls that targeted Chinese communities this spring, can be harmful. According to news reports, more than 30 consumers in New York City were tricked out of an estimated $3 million by callers pretending to be from the Chinese consulate and demanding money to settle a criminal matter.
According to YouMail, scams made up about 40 percent of the 4.4 billion robocalls placed to Americans in September. Not all area codes are equal: Phone owners with a 404 area code (Atlanta) on average received 68 robocalls in September. That's much higher than the next-worst area code, 202 in Washington, D.C., which got an average of 49 robocalls the same month.
Not all robocalls are bad. Some, like appointment reminders and flight updates, are usually welcome. But robocall scams, such as the wave of calls that targeted Chinese communities this spring, can be harmful. According to news reports, more than 30 consumers in New York City were tricked out of an estimated $3 million by callers pretending to be from the Chinese consulate and demanding money to settle a criminal matter.
According to YouMail, scams made up about 40 percent of the 4.4 billion robocalls placed to Americans in September. Not all area codes are equal: Phone owners with a 404 area code (Atlanta) on average received 68 robocalls in September. That's much higher than the next-worst area code, 202 in Washington, D.C., which got an average of 49 robocalls the same month.
Or are the scammers just trying to get our voiceprint to bypass the new "your voice patterns are stored to secure your account details" BS that credit card companies are now rolling out?
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I am getting multiple robocalls a day though, thank goodness for spam call blocker apps that keep almost all of them from reaching me... starting to think about a complete whitelist approach, as terrible as whitelists are it may be the only way to weather the storm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Against my better judgment, and for the first time in months, I actually answered a call from an unknown number a few days ago. The call was coming in on my wife's phone, which I was holding for her at the time as I waited for her to finish up with whatever it was that was indisposing her. She's been getting multiple robocalls every day, so I was expecting more of the same. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I answered, since I was absolutely convinced it was a robocall. Maybe I was just bored.
Pausing the show I was watching on my tablet, I tentatively raised the phone and said, "Hello", intentionally withholding my name or any other identifying information that could be sold for profit or otherwise used by someone unscrupulous.
"Hello, is this Mr. [my last name]?", came the reply from a real human being speaking in a perfect American accent. Talk about odd and unexpected, especially so since they were asking for me specifically, but they were calling my wife's phone.
"Yes, this is he."
"Oh, good. We've been trying to reach you on your phone for the last 10 minutes, but the call hasn't gone through. This is the nurse's station at the hospital. Your wife is out of surgery and awake. You can bring your things from the waiting area and come back to see her in room Blue-3 now."
Right. I was supposed to be expecting a call from an unknown number...
Careful with going through those prompts, you could only be confirming a valid number, and get even more calls.
I've also heard you might trigger a call to a 'premium' pay to call if you press buttons or try to call back and you get a huge hit on your bill (think a 976 number for instance).
Good luck with that. Many of these calls have been shown to originate from the exact same call centre as legit companies outsource their crap to.
As long as the industry can convince the lawmakers that they need to be allowed to do caller ID spoofing for their supposedly legitimate calls, the companies who use these call centres in India (or wherever) have created a condition where they insist their 'real' calls outweighs our ability to not receive calls with fake caller ID. Literally industry demands that this bullshit be possible so they can save money, and lawmakers have agreed.
The now entrenched of outsourcing customer support to idiots in call centres where there is cheap labour is precisely why this crap hasn't been shut down.
If you see a number you don't recognize don't answer, and don't be so sure that wasting their time won't cause you even more grief.