Q: Why am I getting so many robocalls these days, and what can I do to stop them?
A: If it seems like you鈥檙e getting a lot more calls that are either a robocall, a scammer or someone trying to sell you something, you鈥檙e not imagining it.
According to call statistics from companies that monitor unwanted calls, the percentage of calls has risen steeply over the past year from 3.7 percent of calls in 2017 to nearly 30 percent in 2018.
What鈥檚 worse is they predict that by the end of the year, you can expect about 50 percent of the calls to your cellphone to be a nuisance call.
Why it鈥檚 accelerating
One of the biggest reasons that we鈥檙e experiencing a huge increase in robocalls is that the technology to call millions of phones every day has gotten extremely cheap and easy for just about anyone with a minimal amount of tech skills.
Why the do-not-call-registry is useless
It doesn’t hurt to register your phone number(s) with , but don鈥檛 expect it to do much for you. Only legitimate marketing companies that are willing to follow the rules will comply with this registry.
If you do get a call you鈥檇 like to report, .
A growing number of the junk calls and text messages are coming from scammers that are operating outside of the U.S. through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), so they鈥檙e not going to bother paying attention to the registry.
Also, the registry does not apply to political calls, nonprofits, charities, polling organizations and any company that you鈥檝e either done business with or sought information from in the attempt to do business. Those businesses can call you for up to 18 months after your last interaction.
Neighbor spoofing
You may have also noticed that a lot of the calls are coming from your same area code and some times with the same prefix as your phone number. This spoofing of the caller ID is done automatically by the robocall systems to make it look like someone in your area is calling you in hopes that you鈥檒l answer the call.
Never say 鈥榶es鈥�
One of the many scams used by these robocalls is focused on recording your voice saying 鈥榶es,鈥� which they can use as your voice signature for future scams.
They鈥檒l usually try at the very beginning of the call by asking something like 鈥渁re you the homeowner鈥� or 鈥渃an you hear me?鈥�
What can you do?
The first thing is stop answering any call when you don鈥檛 recognize the number; let it go to voice mail.
If you have one of the newer Google Pixel phones (2, 2XL, 3 or 3XL), there is a cool little utility in your Phone app that will allow you to screen calls using the Google Assistant 鈥� Google is working on making it available for other Android devices.
The telecom industry is working on a caller-verification protocol, but until then, there are apps available that will at least try to determine if a call is potential spam, including , , 听补苍诲 .
