Why in the year of our lord 2022 am I still getting robocalls??? [View all]
Someone out there really, really wants to help me avoid expensive car problems.
Their recorded voice tells me that they’ve been trying to reach me about an extended warranty my car doesn’t have, yet which is somehow about to expire. I just have to press 1 to learn more. They’re persistent: I get multiple calls a day from multiple phone numbers across the country.
If you own a phone, you’ve probably had a similar experience. Maybe the call was about something else, like the IRS warning you that your arrest is imminent unless you buy a bunch of gift cards right now, or Amazon asking you about a large purchase you never made, or Marriott offering you a free vacation. (In case it wasn’t clear: These calls did not come from the IRS, or Amazon, or Marriott.) Or maybe it wasn’t a call at all, but a text message about a hold on an account with a bank you don’t even have an account with or a prize for a contest you didn’t enter. Just click on a link or call a phone number to learn more. Maybe you’ve noticed that you’re getting a lot more of those texts than you used to.
By “you,” I mean pretty much everyone in the US who has a phone. Americans are barraged with tens of billions of unwanted robocalls and robotexts every year. As a result, many of us have stopped picking up the phone at all when it rings. According to a recent robocall report from Transaction Network Services (TNS), which offers robocall identification and mitigation services, people accept calls from unknown numbers only 10 percent of the time. Like a hiker in Colorado, who was missing for 24 hours last October because he wouldn’t answer calls from an unknown number (in this case, that number happened to be the Search and Rescue Team).
The Colorado hiker is an extreme, if relatable, example. But unwanted robocalls and texts are more than just a pervasive annoyance or a reason a man was lost for longer than he might have been. They cost me a little bit of time and patience, but they cost the millions of people who fall for robocall- and text-related scams money — a lot of it. Truecaller, a call blocking app, estimates Americans lost nearly $30 billion to phone scams in 2021 (it’s difficult to know the real number, as most people don’t report being scammed).
How can this possibly be a problem, still, in this modern world of technological wonders? Our phones have become tiny computers that are more powerful than what NASA used to land people on the moon. Why can’t they stop an unsolicited phone call? How hard can it possibly be?
https://www.vox.com/recode/22882647/robocalls-robotexts-scams-stir-shaken-voip-extended-warranty
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