A Seattle TV station is putting numbers on it.
Scammers called Washington residents 260 million times last year, KING 5 TV says (read story here). That works out to 33 calls per person. I get that many in a typical month.
Here’s the bigger problem: More than 1 in 9 Washingtonians, 835,000 people, lost money to robocalls in 2021. The calls keep coming in large part because they’re highly profitable. More than enough people fall for them to keep the call centers in business.
The scammers are getting more sophisticated in their use of technology. They can spoof the local area code and legitimate numbers. Robocalls, at the word implies, are automated; computers can make literally millions of calls. The usual technique is to then either play a recorded message or switch you to a live person if you pick up.
The TV station recommends hanging up, but it’s better not to pick up in the first place. If it’s important, they’ll leave a voicemail. Letting calls you don’t recognize go into voicemail lets you screen them without talking to anyone. If it’s, say, the dentist, call back to their known number.
It’s hard to believe the phone companies can’t stop this, but now we’re talking about things above my pay grade.