WASHINGTON ā Have you noticed an uptick in those super annoying robocalls, telemarketers, and scams hitting up your smartphone or landline all hours of the day and night? I have, and itās driving me nuts.
Last month, I had a bogus call to lower my electricity bill. A few weeks ago, it was a pause after I said hello, then a woman saying, āOh, Iām sorry, Iām adjusting my headset,ā before launching into a sales pitch of some sort. And then thereās the daily deluge of numbers that look legit ā maybe a doctorās appointment reminder or my daughterās school calling ā only to end up being an obvious scam. āThis is George Michael,ā says a male caller with a heavy accent, ācalling from your online pharmacy with your diet medication.ā Talk about adding insult to injury.
Robocall Rage
According to the , there are nearly 2.5 billion robocalls made to smartphones every month. Thatās an average of 7.6 calls per person. Complaints about these calls are up more than 50 percent from last year, confirms the .
At best, the calls are frustrating. At worst, theyāre . So, what can we do about it once and for all?
Here are the tops tips from the experts:
#1 Google your own phone number
Letās start with a little self-education. How the heck are these criminal-callers getting our cell numbers in the first place?
Sometimes, itās just random luck. Auto-dialers blow through millions of numbers until they land on one that gets a human on the other end. But the bigger problem? Most of us are giving up our phone numbers and not even realizing it.
āYour phone number is available so many places,ā telecom guru Bob Bentz said. Ever buy anything online? You probably gave your phone number. Loyalty card at the grocery store? It’s likely tied to your phone number.ā
The recommends Googling your own smartphone and home phone numbers. Do it. Iāll wait.
Were they there? Mine were. They might not be alongside your name, but chances are theyāre there, collected by a āpeople searchā company like that aggregates information from āWhite Pages listings, Public Records and Social Network Information.ā Thanks to modern technology, these lists are now easy for cyber scammers to scrape as well.
#2 Add your name to the Do Not Call registry
If you havenāt already, add your phone numbers to the . I just went there to verify that Iām on the list and sure enough, Iāve been registered since February 2006. So much for that. Obviously, it doesnāt fix the issue all the way around, but it does help keep legitimate companies from cold-calling you. Sadly for us, the bad-guys have easy workarounds (like No. 1).
If youāre already on the Do Not Call Registry and still get hit-up, , which compiles the reports and hands out the fines. You can also block them right from your landline, smartphone and block any spammy texts too.
Blocking calls and texts
On iPhones, tap the green phone icon on your home screen, select the āRecentsā tab on the bottom of the screen, then tap the blue āiā information icon next to the phone number you want to block. A screen pops up with a bunch of options and at the very bottom youāll find āBlock This Caller.ā Tap it and then when the verification screen appears, confirm your decision.
On most Androids, there are two easy ways to block numbers. If youāre on the standard version of Android 6.0, you can go into your call log and long-press on the number you want to block, then select āBlock numberā from the pop-up menu.
If youāre using a version of Android other than the stock version (or if you donāt know which version youāre using) you can select āSettingsā and then āCall blocking,ā then tap āAdd numberā and type in the number you want to block.
On landlines: thereās a function called anonymous call rejection. To enable it, just pick up your phone and press “*77.ā You should hear three short beeps to let you know it’s activated, and then you can hang up. After that, all calls that come in as Anonymous, Private (a favorite of robocallers), or Blocked wonāt get through. You can turn the feature off whenever you want by pressing “*87.ā Virtually every phone company has this feature built right into your service, and itās just sitting there waiting for you.
#3 Bring in the big guns
There are a handful of apps that promise enough anti-spam ammo to stop annoying calls for good. They all require a bit of set-up, but the toughest part of that so far for me has just been remembering my AT&T password. (Youāll need the provider password for some of them.)
: This is the best of these apps Iāve reviewed to date ā so itās no surprise that it won a . After you download the app onto your device, you can sign up for a free trial for 30 days, or commit right away to either $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year. (If you donāt remember to cancel your sign-up, youāll be auto-billed.)
When a sketchy telemarketer hits up your phone number, your call screen shows a big red dot and a note that says āRobocallerā so you know to avoid it. Thereās even an option in the app to block these calls automatically, before they even reach your smartphone screen.
Nomorobo swears it doesnāt block legitimate calls from pharmacies, schools, or other important institutions ā because it āanalyzes millions of calls made to hundreds of thousands of phone lines every single day.ā While it doesnāt want to say much more about its secret sauce than that, Iām using it and it seems to be working well.
Itās also great for blocking bad callers on your home phone too and itās free on a landline. The catch is that it only works with phone service, so if you get your phone through an internet or cable provider like Charter, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon Fios, Comcast Xfinity, Vonage, or several others, you’re good to go. It does not work however, on traditional “analog copper” phone lines. If youāre not sure what you have, call your phone company.
:Ā This app reports that itās collected more than 3 billion phone numbers and relies on information from users to filter out the scams. When the app identifies a specific phone number as a scam, it lets you know with an alert on the call screen. The website says it gets its information from a central database that is constantly being updated with new phone numbers.
Set up is like Nomorobo. Just download the app and follow the prompts. I like that you can link it to Facebook to auto-fill and there’s an animated screen that shows you the entire set-up process. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
There are several pricing options, but you end up paying about $1.50 per month for the full suite of features. Because Truecaller queries a central database for information on each number, the app requires a data connection to identify new callers, so keep that in mind if you often find yourself in places without 3G or 4G available.
I posted a message on this topic in my Facebook feed, and dozens of people chimed in. Other people have good things to say about similar apps such as , , , and .
#4. Superstar Screening
As rudimentary as it seems, one the most effective deterrents for ending unwanted calls is good old fashioned call screening.
āIf no one ever picked up the phone when it rang, Robocalls would stop,ā says Alex Quilici, CEO of , a visual voicemail and robocall blocking service. āIf Iām going to scam you to buy a fake cruise or install fake virus software, I need you to answer the phone so that I can pitch you.ā
Quilici said he turned his landline ringer off altogether, and routes calls through an answering machine with caller ID. If the caller doesnāt leave a message, he doesnāt worry about it. If they do, he says he can still grab the phone while theyāre talking, or call them back. āThese arenāt perfect solutions, itās like bringing back the ā80s and ā90s, but it goes a long way to solve the problem.ā
#5. Follow the rules of (dis)engagement
When I spoke with the and the both had the same message: The scammers will only keep using scummy tactics if people keep falling for them. Their advice:
- Never ever interact with a robocall.
- Donāt press a button, wait for an agent, or even speak.
- Anything you do that shows your number is real and active will just make you an even bigger target for promotions, real or fake, in the future. Seriously, just hang up! (Or better yet, donāt answer at all.)
Because robocalling is now so incredibly cheap and easy to do, every time someone willingly hands over their credit card number for a sketchy time-share or signs up for a potentially fraudulent ālow interest rateā program, theyāre funding hundreds of thousands of more robocalls. All it takes is one out of every 100,000 robocalls āto workā to remain profitable.
Emmy award-winning consumer tech journalist,Ģż, helps you take advantage of technology without emptying your wallet or losing you mind. Jennifer is aĀ columnist, host of the digital lifestyle series;Ā ,Ģżand contributes consumer technology segments forĀ ,Ģż,Ģż,Ģż,Ģż, Yahoo, Time, and many others.
As a journalist, public speaker, and no-geek-speak go-to for your wired world, JennĀ can explain the ins and outs of tech in ways normal humans can relate to — without speaking entirely in acronyms or giving you a migraine.ĢżYou can find her online atĀ .Ģż
