The "Robocallers, Spoofers, & Scammers: Part I" Story

It was an ordinary day.  "Phone's ringing," my wife yells to me as she washes the dishes.  "I know!  Nobody important!" I yell back to her.  I knew instantly, since our TV service has this neat feature that when the phone rings, it displays the number and the name of the person calling on the top right of the TV screen.  And, at least one in five of those calls is a call from someone we don't know or a robocaller.  I thought robocalls were always something that others got, but not so anymore.  In 2018 in the United States, about 26.3 billion robocalls were placed to cellphones and landlines which is approximately seven calls per month per person.  Seems like some days we get that many robocalls that day.  The number of robocalls in the U.S. increased an estimated 41.3% from the year before.  

Do you answer these calls?  Why?

There are about 1,500 robocalls placed every second in the U.S.  Do you answer every call that you get?  Seems like some people do just that.  I was reading about a young woman who had worked at a bookstore.  Somehow robocallers had stolen the bookstores phone number and were placing thousands of robocalls using that number.  People receiving the calls thought it was coming from a bookstore, but didn't answer it.  Instead, some returned the call and began yelling at the young woman, demanding to tell them why she called them.  So, if you receive a call from some location that you don't know, do you return the call?  Why?  Don't you know it's a robocall?  Telemarketers and telemarketing scams have been with us since the phone was invented in 1876.  In the century that followed, telemarketing became a thriving industry.  But, now people are becoming sick of all those calls interrupting their meals, TV watching, family gatherings and just plain quiet time.  I was one of those who got tired of all the calls trying to sell me something so I called the national Do Not Call Registry and added my number.  If someone called me that I didn't want to, I could report them and they could possibly face a fine.  Seems 50 million of us did the same thing. But, today robocallers don't seem to care if you report them.  And, if they use spoofing (disguising and stealing real phone numbers within local area codes) no one can report the number.  So, anyone in the world can make anonymous calls to you.  And, the software they use to make the calls is extremely cheap, and doesn't cost a cent if the caller doesn't answer the call.  One of the most famous scams done by robocallers is the IRS scam.  A robocaller will place a call using the phone number of an IRS agent and tell the person who answers that they owe past taxes and if they don't pay immediately, a warrant will be issued for their arrest.  And...people fall for it each and every day. Last year people sent over $53 million to robocallers.  And that amount is from people who reported the scam.  Some, too embarrassed to make the call to the IRS after realizing they were scammed, lost much more.  For Carol and myself, the TV screen really helps to sort out the calls we don't want to take.  I should also tell you that our home phones have a screen that displays the number and name as do our cellphones.  Perhaps you too have that service.  But, many must disregard that or don't check the screen before answering.  But, I found there is much more to scamming than receiving unwanted phone calls.  Tomorrow I will tell you the story of my experience that caused me considerable stress and worry.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.