Gadgetory

spam calls are worse than ever that's not just my opinion it's not just how we all feel it's true robocall complaints to the Federal Trade Commission have quintupled since 2009 and they jumped steeply in just the past year to four and a half million total and that's just robo calls they're another two and a half million complaints about live telemarketers so one North can we do to start fighting back against all these spammy calls there are three steps you can take they won't solve the problem entirely but if you're fed up this is what you can do to start fighting back okay so step number one use a call blocking out there are a whole bunch of these and they all try to do the same thing block spam calls before you have to answer your phone some of the most popular include hiya and true caller which are free and nomorobo and robo killer which require a subscription we're gonna use nomorobo because it won the FTC's robo call block new challenge but these all work more or less the same and they work for both iOS and Android once you've installed it you'll have to give that permission to handle your caller ID that's all store a huge constantly updating list of known spammers and then it checks those numbers against screws calling you if it sees that known spammer is calling you and either won't let the number through order to identify you when they're calling if the app does let a spam call through by accident then you can tell it that and it'll then factor that information in for everybody else to help lock even more spin up calls since most of these apps are free there's no harm in just trying went out to see how it works for you but before we go any further what's behind all these spam calls anyway well since certain private numbers are basically everywhere now linked to our online accounts pasted in our own email signatures and printed on business cards and giving our phone numbers to pretty much everyone there's a good chance they'll be shuffled along to someone they shouldn't plus thanks to autodialing software any internet scammers can place thousands of calls a minute for really cheap they can even guess at numbers if they want to and once they're dialed the auto dialer can then play back a prerecorded message there's no makeup technology is also making spammers more clever letting them disguise their phone number as a local one with your own area code that way you're more likely to answer given each fake call a better chance of landing but why do we receive so many spam calls well as you can guess someone is profiting from this the caller-id company trueCaller estimates that phone scammers made 9.5 billion in 2016 from Americans alone and the more calls they send out the more chances they have of finding a target and while this is a huge problem it's actually really hard to crack down on making spammy calls like these are largely illegal in the US but robo calls can be placed from overseas and there's not much the United States can do about that and for phone service providers it can be hard to tell whether a call that's coming in is from a scammer or from someone you actually want to get in touch with they have to be careful not to block any calls that really should have been let through and it's important to note that some robo calls are legal your pharmacy might call you your prescription is ready or your child's school we're closed due to inclement weather or even an airline your gate has changed generally speaking these are all legal the focus is on those calls from scammers claiming you want a free cruise or they can lower your interest rate or that the FBI is looking for you the service you mail estimates that 30 to 40 percent of all robo calls are scams and you definitely shouldn't be receiving those calls all right so what else can you do to stop spam calls well there are a few other things first make sure your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry if you're in the United States assuming those calls were coming in legally that could start to cut down on some of them second scene your phone provider can do AT&T and t-mobile both offer services that are designed to identify spammy callers when they hit your phone Verizon and Sprint have similar services but they all charge you for it and finally know what's doing you do get a spam call don't talk don't press any buttons don't let them know that a human is on the line or there might be more likely to call back also be aware of what some of the common phone scams are like free travel packages so you don't give them your time or money if you really do want to talk to somebody consider calling them back from a number that you know is legitimate also and this is really important where you're handing out your information over the phone make sure you're really identifying yourself rather than handing your identity to somebody who doesn't are unfortunately it might never be possible to fully put a stop to robo calls but you're not defenseless against them the government and phone carriers are doing their best put a stop to them and if you take some of these steps you'll be able to start reducing the annoyance hey thanks for watching this is part of our series workflow where we show you how we're using our own tech to make our lives a little bit easier if you want to see some more be sure to subscribe to the Virg