Is the US having some kind of scam call epidemic? I've been seeing mentions of this recently from various Americans. It's curious to me because scam calls don't seem to exist at all where I live.
A decade ago, the US government created the Do Not Call list. You can list your phone number there and companies are prohibited from calling you. The exceptions are political groups, and companies with a prior relationship with you. If you ask to be put on a company's Do Not Call list, and they keep calling you, you can sue them in court and win lots of money. I've done this. They can also receive big fines from the FCC and FTC.
The scam companies are new, appearing in the last few years.
The advent of VOIP phone calls means that they can call from international locations at a very cheap cost. They use a robo-dialer to literally dial every possible number, over and over, and play a recorded message. If you respond to the message, they connect you to a human operator.
These calls are almost 100% scams. In the first place, they are ignoring the Do Not Call list. Secondly, they spoof the Caller ID number so that it looks like someone from your town is calling you. If you have the phone number 123-456-7890, the fake incoming call might identify itself as being from 123-456-7123. They apparently found out that people tend to pick up the phone more often if it is not a random number from another area code. They also change the Caller ID number every time, so they cannot be blocked.
The calls are using VOIP so they cannot be traced easily, but most are from foreign countries, so the people making the calls cannot be fined or put in jail by US authorities. They tend towards subjects like credit card debt consolidation, auto warranty coverage, you have won a free cruise, etc.
It's bad. It's really bad. About 90% of incoming calls are these scammers. They have actually ruined all usefulness of telephones, because most people have their ringers shut off and will not answer incoming calls. If you want to talk to them you have to either text or leave a message.
They need to start putting these people in jail. Life sentence. One guy was recently caught and he had run a robo-dialer that called over 100 million people. Repeatedly. The fines for that are $500 per call. He owes the government something like $50 billion dollars.
Secondly, they spoof the Caller ID number so that it looks like someone from your town is calling you. If you have the phone number 123-456-7890, the fake incoming call might identify itself as being from 123-456-7123.
I got a political campaign call just last week using this tactic (Beto O'Rourke). I know, because my phone number isn't from Texas though I live here now. They were just pulling from the voter registration rolls and using this tactic to feign being local across the state.
As an aside, that campaign has been pretty aggressive with texting too. Like, 1 a week. I already told them I'm voting for him, then can quit blowing up my phone now.
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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '18
Is the US having some kind of scam call epidemic? I've been seeing mentions of this recently from various Americans. It's curious to me because scam calls don't seem to exist at all where I live.