People with both phones can agree on one thing: calls suck.
My mother is the one who calls me more than the robot. Cynthia Arnold, who is very concerned about your federal student loan, gets in touch every week or so, saying she needs to discuss repayment options with some new changes that have taken effect. I don't have any loans from the federal government. There's a man named "Rich" who says he's calling me back because he wants to know more about the information I gave him. I don't know if I should send him to that Nigerian prince.
Cynthia, Rich, and other pre recorded pests have continued to contact me from new numbers, sometimes with local area codes, despite me blocking them. This tactic is called neighbor spoofing by the Better Business Bureau. They used to be more annoying than anything, but now they seem to be more aggressive.
The Federal Communications Commission has been trying to crack down on illegal and unwanted phone calls for a long time. According to a report conducted by YouMail, about 50.5 billion calls were placed to US consumers in the year 2021, which works out to about 200 calls per adult with a phone.
That's down from a pre-pandemic peak of 58 billion calls, but still enough to make them the agency's biggest source of consumer complaints.
You might think you'd be able to tell if someone is a scam when they try to reach you. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of calls. Specific details about your vehicle and policy can make a car warranty call seem more legit. One in five Americans were victims of a phone scam at least once last year, according to a study conducted by therobocall blocking app Truecaller. The loss was estimated to be $502 per victim, up from $351 the previous year.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in fines against telemarketers, investigation partnerships with 22 states, and cease-and-desists to voice service providers are just some of the things the FCC has promised to do.
One of the "latest scamming trends" the agency has on its radar is illegal automated text messages, and the FCC wants to make mobile carriers block them.
Federal efforts aren't the answer to all of our problems. "Advances in technology have allowed illegal and spoofed calls to be made from anywhere in the world and more cheaply and easily than ever before." It has become more of a problem for consumers and a harder problem to solve. The game of whack-a-mole has been created by bad actors.
It's also possible that many of the calls you get are legal and even wanted. It depends on a number of factors, including the technology used to make it, whether it's to a landline or mobile number, and whether it's from a telemarketer who's got your consent. Weeding out illegal calls in real time without blocking lawful calls is the most complex part of the program.
Where does that leave the consumer? The FCC supports the use ofrobocall blocking technology along with ignoring calls from unknown numbers and listing your phone number on the Do Not Call registry.
Check with your phone carrier to see if they have an app for dealing with unwanted calls. Apple and other phone manufacturers offer services that prevent calls from ringing. If you don't think those tools are powerful enough, you can download arobocall blocking app that is purpose-built to stop scam artists.
Fine print is important when it comes to third party solutions. Most call blocker apps don't need a lot of storage space on your phone, and the upfront costs aren't expensive. You wont be able to tell the app is there. Some of them are able to screen and block calls before a user's phone rings.
The convenience comes at a cost.
"According to TechCrunch and Dan Hastings, a security researcher at NCC Group, many top robocall blocking apps share your phone number with analytics firms and [upload] device information such as device type and software version to companies like Facebook without your explicit consent."
Wong said, "Yikes!".
Not every app that blocks calls is a bad one. Even if the one you use doesn't sell your data under the table, it still gathers it. Many apps rely on a crowdsourced database of numbers to cross-check anonymous callers with already- identified culprits, and those numbers have to come from somewhere If you're using a third-party blocker app, you're putting your personal information up for grabs, so it's safe to assume.
If you can get past those privacy issues, installing a third-partyrobocall blocking app is still one of the best and most reliable ways to prevent telemarketers and political campaigns from reaching you on your phone. If you want to know what you're signing up for, be sure to look over its privacy policy.
Based on features and user ratings, we recommend looking into seven robocall blocking apps.
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