James GordonOn average, Americans receive 52 billion robocalls per year. This is a staggering figure that makes up more than 23% of all calls made in the country, according to a survey of 1,000 US consumers by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is a big increase from the 31.2 million robocalls Americans received last year. It is expected that almost 60% of Americans will receive robocalls this year, and the figure is expected to rise to 65% by 2018 and 88% by 2019. The survey revealed that the increase in robocalls is attributed to the surge in sales of smartphones.
In a recent study, it was found that the number of robocalls Americans receive is on track to hit 52 billion this year. The number of Americans who have had at least one robocall in the last 30 days is at an all-time high. While the US government has been trying to crack down on these unwanted calls, consumers still have a long way to go before the problem is fixed.
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – According to a new study by the app True Caller, Americans have lost about $30 billion to robo-call scams.
According to a new study by the True Caller app, Americans have lost about $30 billion to robo-call scams. (CBSLA)
It’s annoying, my phone keeps ringing, says Tamara Ehrlich. When I respond to a couple, I get overwhelmed. It’s not my problem to fix it, they are the ones breaking the law.
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The calls are annoying, incessant and illegal, but can anything be done to stop them?
Calls are coming in at a rapid pace, whether they are automated numbers, recorded messages, identity theft or scams. According to recent reports, American consumers will receive more than 52 billion automated calls this year alone.
As long as there is money, there will be scammers trying to get it, says Ian Scherr, editor-in-chief of CNET.
Part of the problem, he says, is that no matter how hard they try to stop them, those on the other side of the line try even harder.
What has happened is that the underlying technology has become more sophisticated, and now I get a lot of robocalls from local numbers, he said. Actions I would expect from my neighborhood or even sometimes from real people. That’s part of what made robo-calls a very different experience today.
But where do all these numbers come from?
Behind it is a computer program with a list of all those phone numbers they suspect are real people, Scherr said. They collect them and sell them to these scammers, and they send tons of phone calls hoping one of you will click yes and start talking to them.
And when people pick up the phone, they know they have a number that works. So what can be done to reduce the number of calls?
The best thing you can do these days, unfortunately, is not answer the phone if you don’t know who’s calling, Sherr said. Of course they’ll leave a message if it’s important to them, but it’s a way to really protect yourself.
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Another thing you can do is apply, he continued. They’re also very popular in terms of identifying spammers who call, and the way they do that is you and I let them know when we’re calling spammers, and then they put them on their list.
Alex Quilici is the CEO of YouMail, a visual voicemail and call blocking app that helps protect people’s phone numbers.
In short, you should install a call protection program on your phone just like you install an antivirus program on your computer, he said. It’s designed to keep your phone from ringing when those bad guys call, or if they get through, they leave a voicemail, we can flag the voicemail and say: Hey, this is a problem. That’s cheating.
But for consumers like Ehrlich, paying for an app isn’t enough.
The police should be with someone else, she said. And I’d like to see mobile operators play a bigger role in making sure their paying customers aren’t inundated with spam, scams and robocalls.
But there is also good news for consumers.
From the 30th. In June, the Federal Communications Commission is requiring all voice providers to implement the new STIR/SHAKEN technology to combat robocalls.
STIR stands for Secure Phone Identity Revisited and SHAKEN stands for Token-based Signature Assertion Processing. This technology works because calls made over the network verify the identity of the caller before they reach the person’s phone.
Only time will tell how well this technology works, but in the meantime, consumers may have to get used to their phones ringing.
It’s really annoying when my phone doesn’t stop ringing and it’s irrelevant, Ehrlich says.
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According to YouMail, Americans received about 4 billion robocalls in May, bringing their numbers down to pre-pandemic levels.
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James Gordon
