Phone Scam Fraud
This article (here) is from the BBC, about U.K.’s telephone system, but the technology is the same.
It explains why scam and robo calls are so hard to block — basically, an antiquated telephone ID protocol dating from 1975 that didn’t anticipate the problem and wasn’t designed to counteract it.
Replacing it is difficult because a great deal of legacy technology relies on it. When phone systems go all-5G, they’ll be harder to hack, but that’s a decade away and even 5G systems aren’t impenetrable.
The bottom line: There is no silver-bullet solution, so beware of phone callers bearing gifts. The best defense is caller ID, and not picking up if you don’t know who’s calling. Also, never give personal information over the phone. For a brief rundown of common scams, and how to protect yourself, click here.