Wisconsin got 515M robocalls last year
That’s up 24% from 2018; firms start to fight back
Instead of just hanging up or letting the calls go to voicemail, Barry Orton attempts to shame phone scammers into seeking another line of work.
The retired University of WisconsinMadison telecom professor gets the usual mix of calls peddling everything from back braces to extended car warranties. When it’s a scam and there’s a real person on the line and not a robot, he makes the call a bit personal.
“I tell them that their parents or grandparents would be ashamed if they knew what they were doing. And can’t they get an honest job?” Orton says. Usually the caller just hangs up. But the volume of these calls has soared in recent years, including billions of “robocalls” made by machines on behalf of individuals flouting the law.
Wisconsin received an estimated 515,508,900 robocalls in 2019, up 24% from the year before, according to YouMail, a robocall blocking service that uses its database of known calls to come up with its figures.
Area code 414 received the most robocalls in the state, an estimated 147,962,500; followed by area codes 608 at 103,569,800; 920 at 96,841,100; 262 at 92,373,800; and 715 at 74,760,400.
Not all robocalling practices are illegal, such as those where you’ve given the caller written consent to be contacted and messages from certain health care providers, political campaigns and debt collectors.
But at least half of the robocalls are probably in violation of federal laws, said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, based in Irvine, California.
And while the number that appears on a Caller ID may look as though it’s
from someone in your area code, it could be a scammer from nearly anywhere in the world disguising their true identity.
The practice is known as “spoofing.” “We advise people that if they don’t recognize the number, don’t pick up the call,” said Lara Sutherlin, administrator of the consumer protection division of Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Instead, let it go into voicemail and then check on it.
Legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump in late January may help curb spoofed calls and bring some scammers to justice. Known as the TRACED Act, it requires telephone service providers to implement at no charge to customers a number authentication system aimed at identifying who’s really on the other end of the line.
“It should have an impact on how many calls come through. But, having said that, there is a lot of money to be made in defrauding people. As we come up with technology to address it, the scammers will continue to try and develop a workaround,” Sutherlin said.
Some of the most harmful instances have been criminals spoofing phone numbers belonging to the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The callers, or robots on the line, demand that you send them money or reveal personal identity information or face dire consequences.
In one recent example circulating in Wisconsin’s 262 area code, the robocall says: “We have got an order to suspend your Social Security number at very right moment because we have found suspicious activities. So, before we go ahead and suspend it, kindly call us back on our number.”
Calling that number this week revealed it was disconnected or out of service. But that’s not unexpected because scammers are constantly changing numbers to keep from getting shut down.
“At this point, it’s pretty clear that the malicious activity is one step ahead of the regulatory and technological framework to try and prevent it … but we have to continue the fight,” said Bill Esbeck, executive director of the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association, which represents telephone and broadband providers.
Spoofed calling and robocalling have reached such epic proportions that 70% of U.S. consumers say they won’t answer the phone if they don’t recognize the number, according to a Consumer Reports survey.
It has “destroyed consumer trust in phone calls … with great impact to legitimate callers,” said James Garvert, senior vice president of Neustar, a Virginia-based information services technology firm.
AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile have been rolling out what’s called STIR/SHAKEN software that combats spoofed numbers by verifying whether the number that shows up on caller ID is the real thing.
Not all service carriers have implemented the software yet, and scammers can take advantage of numbers not in the system. But regulators are starting to put pressure on carriers known to facilitate robocall traffic, according to Quilici.
“Currently, they’re trying to get a restraining order to shut down one of these carriers that’s caused hundreds of millions of illegal robocalls to go on the network,” he said.
There are legal uses for spoofing, like when a doctor calls a patient from a personal mobile phone and displays the office number on caller ID.
But the federal Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits anyone from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value. Wisconsin law seems to take it a step further, eliminating the “intent or harm” requirement.
Illegal spoofing can result in fines of $10,000 per incident. On Jan. 30, the FCC proposed nearly $13 million in fines against an unnamed individual for allegedly using caller ID spoofing in thousands of menacing robocalls.
“The caller made unlawful, spoofed robocalls to target a community grappling with the recent murder of a local woman, threatened a journalist and newspaper, and attempted to influence a jury. Additionally, the caller made unlawful, spoofed robocalls related to political campaigns in California, Florida and Georgia,” the FCC said in announcing the proposed fines.
But collecting the fines, especially against callers from outside the U.S. where many scams originate, is another matter.
“While in theory there’s a penalty, it’s been fairly rare that it’s been enforced,” Quilici said.
Many of the scams originate from low-budget operations in Asia.
“They’re from countries with a lot of poverty, where you don’t need a lot of those scams to be successful in order to make money. Another big chunk of calls is from the United States for very questionable services,” Quilici said.
The best way for individuals to handle spoofed calls and robocalls is to simply not answer them or immediately hang up, according to consumer protection experts.
Don’t engage in conversation because the scammers may have technology that’s attempting to hack into your mobile phone while you’re on the line, said Darren Guccione, a Chicago-based security expert and founder of Keeper Security.
If you answer the phone and a recorded message says to hit a particular button to stop getting the calls, just hang up. Scammers often use this trick to identify live lines.
There are phone apps aimed at blocking robocalls. And Google’s Pixel smartphones have a tool, known as Call Screen, which can be tapped and Google Assistant will answer the call and ask the caller to identify themselves and say why they’re calling. If it’s someone you want to speak with, you just take the call. Or the call can automatically be reported to Google as spam and the number will be blocked from calling you in the future.
Some “branded” caller ID screens display information to include a verified business name, the location, a company logo or potential reason for the call.
“With a rise in branded caller displays, consumers could not only trust that their carrier has verified their calls, but that the businesses on the other end of the line are also legitimate,” said Garvert with Neustar.
“The real game changer will come when, at a glance, they can be assured who is calling and why,” he said.