My smartphone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize. I ignore it, and the caller leaves a message, “You will be taken under custody by the local cops,” says a robotic-sounding female voice.
I know right away that it’s a scam, likely one of a half-dozen calls I’ll get today. And it’s not even noon yet.
Consumers get an estimated 98 million robocalls daily, according to government watchdog agencies. Fraud from these unwanted calls amounts to about $9.5 billion annually. And despite some wins against robocallers last year, this year is off to a tough start.
"We continue to bring cases and shut down as many folks as we can," said attorney Janice Kopec, the Federal Trade Commission's point person on robocalls. “But sophisticated auto-dialers make it really easy for scammers to make illegal calls from anywhere in the world and hide behind fake caller ID information. They also use call spoofing to disguise calls with local phone numbers.”
More than 3 billion robocalls were placed last month alone, according to the YouMail Robocall Index.
“So far, March has been the worst we’ve ever seen,” YouMail CEO Alex Quilici says. “We estimate there was more than 100 million made a day. That’s an astonishing number of robocalls."
So, what are we to do? Do those spam blocker apps even work? Is the trusty “just don’t answer” advice outdated?
Turn to your phone
Samsung's Smart Call alerts you if the number that’s calling is a known robocaller. Smart Call comes with new Samsung Galaxy phones starting with the S7 and includes the Note 8.
Google’s spam blocker doesn’t have a particular name, but it’s even more powerful. On Google’s Pixel phones, the default Google Phone app lights up your screen with a bright red warning telling you not to answer the spam calls. It’s already a great feature, but a new update rolling out soon makes it even better by sending spam calls straight to voicemail and never bothering you with them.
If you don’t have a Pixel phone, you can still download the Google Phone app for Android, which will replace your current Android calling app, and get the same great features.
Let your carrier handle it
Wireless carriers are sick and tired of robocalls, too. All the major carriers now have their own apps to stop spam calls, and most of them are free with your plan.
AT&T: Call Protect (iOS, Android, free)
AT&T’s app can auto-block suspected fraud calls and alert you if a caller is likely a robocall spammer. If you find a spammer using a number that wasn’t picked up, you can easily block them manually as well.
Verizon: Caller Name ID (iOS, Android, free)
Caller Name ID offers alerts for suspected spam callers before you bother to answer, as well as marks new spam numbers and shares blocked spam numbers with people on your contact list who also have the app.
T-Mobile: Scam Block (Android, pre-installed, free)
T-Mobile customers with Android phones get a handy scam-blocker built right into their phones. The feature (which you enable by dialing #662#) automatically blocks known scam call numbers without any additional setup. A second helpful app, also preinstalled on T-Mobile smartphones running Android, is called Name ID. It labels unknown numbers as possible spam if they’ve been reported in the past.
Sprint: Premium Caller ID (iOS, Android, $2.99/Month)
Unlike the previous three carriers, Sprint’s solution to spam call blocking is a bit different. It’s a paid monthly service that lets you register your name. This helps the carrier figure out who is a real caller so that it can alert you of potential spammers and robocallers. It works with any iOS or Android phone on Sprint’s network, and you don’t have to install any additional apps.
Download an app
Apps such as Nomorobo, Truecaller, Hiya, RoboKiller and YouMail really can cull the stream of con-artist calls. Many of the apps are free for at least a week, then cost around $2 a month or nearly $20 a year after that. (The apps present this to you as “upgrades” or “premium,” which you inevitably want to ditch ads or get the best the tech has to offer.)
I’ve used all of them and really like AT&T’s free Call Protect, as well as Nomorobo, for how simple they are overall. Nomorobo stops working well every three to four months, but if I go into the settings and “refresh” it, it gets better at screening out scam calls again. YouMail is also great because it delivers a message to known scammers that your number is out of service, which takes the target off your head. At least for now.
Use the Do Not Call Registry
As much as it might feel like it doesn’t help, it’s still a good practice to add your numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry. If your number is on the registry and you do get unwanted calls, report them. Basically, this gives the good-guys at least one way to fight the bad guys, who have plenty of incentive to keep trying.
“It’s a sheer numbers game, and the economics are simple. (The robocallers) only need the scam to hit a small percentage to fall victim for it to be profitable," says Truecaller's head of growth, Nick Larsson.
Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech contributor and host of USA TODAY's digital video show TECH NOW. E-mail her at jj@techish.com. Follow her on Twitter @JenniferJolly.
