Robocalls are ubiquitous. There were nearly 48 billion robocalls made nationally in 2018—that’s 146 for every person in America! Although some robocalls are legal, the vast majority are illegal telemarketing spam and outright scams. Legal (and harmless) robocalls include appointment reminders or other calls from your doctor’s office, pharmacy and other organizations with which you do business. Legal (but often annoying) robocalls also include calls from pollsters, political campaigns and nonprofit groups.
Here are some examples of robocall scams according to the Better Business Bureau:
- Free or low cost travel packages: You get a call saying that you have been selected for a “free vacation” or other prize. These “free” vacations can end up costing a lot of money as the vacation comes with fees.
- Payday loans: These short-term loans can seem like a good deal when you need a cash advance, but the interest rates and fees make them very expensive.
- Exaggerated business and investment opportunities: Callers offer low risk, high return investments, hoping the victim will jump in without investigating.
- Urgent charity/donation requests: Callers ask for an immediate donation to help victims of a recent disaster.
- Foreign lotteries: Scammers notify you that you have won a significant amount of money in a foreign lottery. Of course, there is a catch. You must pay upfront fees to cover processing fees and taxes. And, of course, there are no lottery winnings.
- Extended car warranties: Callers claim to be representatives of a car dealer or manufacturer. They tell you that the warranty on your automobile is about to expire, and urge you to sign up for an extended warranty.
- Free trial offers: Companies offering consumers “free trials” of their products. Most of these require that you cancel within a certain number of days to avoid being charged for additional products.
Scam calls often change with the seasons. There will be more tax-related calls during income tax season, more charity scams after a disaster and more political scams at election time. However, scam calls happen all year.
The Federal Trade Commission is working to stop robocallers, and they have successfully stopped many offenders. However, if you are like most people you are still receiving unwanted robocalls every day. One popular tip for avoiding scam calls is to sign up for the Do Not Call List. The problem with that is that scammers do not obey the law, so they ignore the Do Not Call List. But there are other steps you can take.
- Listen for silence. Robocalls often start with a few seconds of silence while they are trying to determine if the phone has been answered and if a person is on the line.
- Let calls from numbers you do not know go to voicemail.
- Look for the label. Some phone carriers and apps will label suspicious calls as spam. Don’t answer those calls.
- Don’t be afraid to be rude. Even if you believe there is a real person making the call, just hang up with no explanation and no goodbye.
There are apps that can reduce the number of robocalls and scam calls you receive on your mobile device. To learn more about what apps are available for your device, see this article on Clark.com.
