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Robocalls Costing Us a Ton of Money

May 8, 2019

The age of computerization has provided technology for all sorts of scams. Spoofing caller ID is as common as white bread. It’s getting so bad that you can’t generally count on the accuracy of caller ID. The bad guys then shifted tactics and moved to what is called neighborhood calling, where the caller ID shows the same area code and prefix of your number. Our own experience with neighborhood calling is that nobody is actually on the other end of the call and no messages are left. Therefore, what’s the point? The Register has reported that last year, robocalls cost Americans $488 million in consumer losses, which is a 49% increase over 2017.

The latest warning from the FCC deals with one ring robocalls. BGR explains one ring robocalls as calls that only ring once in an attempt to have the receiver call the number back. (Don’t do it!) Reports are that the calls appear to come from the 222 or 223 country codes. The FCC warning states, “These calls are likely trying to prompt consumers to call the number back, often resulting in per minute toll charges similar to a 900 number.” Geez, should we thank the FCC for the warning? Why don’t they just do something about stopping robocalls in the first place?

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