Spam calls could get worse in next year

Nearly half of all cellphone calls next year will come from scammers, according to First Orion, a company that provides phone carriers and their customers caller ID and call blocking technology.

The Arkansas-based firm projects an explosion of incoming spam calls, marking a massive leap from 3.7 percent of total calls in 2017 to more than 29 percent this year, to a projected 45 percent by early 2019.

“Year after year, the scam call epidemic bombards consumers at record-breaking levels, surpassing the previous year and scammers increasingly invade our privacy at new extremes,” Charles Morgan, the chief executive and head data scientist of First Orion, said in a blog post recently.

The barrage of fraudulent calls has taken a more dire turn in recent months, as scammers have targeted immigrant communities with urgent calls claiming ambiguous legal trouble. Across several U.S. metropolitan areas with large Chinese populations, scam callers have posed as representatives of the Chinese Embassy while trying to trick Chinese immigrants and students into revealing their credit card numbers.

Other spam calls involve fraudsters pretending to be a representative from a bank, a debt collector or cable company.

The Internal Revenue Service has also warned taxpayers about phone scams. Callers use telephone numbers that mimic IRS assistance centers, claim to be IRS employees and use fake names and phony badge numbers. The IRS says that victims are falsely told they owe money to the government and are urged to pay up through a gift card or wire transfer. Scammers may also take advantage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Florence, the IRS warned. Scammers can pose as a charitable organization, preying on the generosity of Americans who wish to help those affected by the storm.

More than half of all complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission — more than 200,000 of them — are about unwanted calls. The FCC said Americans received about 2.4 billion unwanted automated calls every month, according to 2016 estimates.

Certain apps can block calls from known scammers.