Spam catchers at work
By Tara Siegel Bernard | The New York Times
Anthony Marino set his mobile phone to “Do Not Disturb” before going to bed, but he sensed it flicker in the dark. The next morning, he saw he had missed roughly 30 calls: at 4:15 a.m., 4:34, 4:45, 5:08 and 5:12, and for two hours after that. Most appeared as “Lithuania” on his caller ID, although they could have come from anywhere.
“I hate to say it, but I don’t pick up the phone anymore, which is crazy,” said Marino, 37, a real estate agent in Brooklyn. “I have missed calls from attorneys and other agents I am doing deals with.”
The seemingly endless stream of robocalls reached a new monthly high of 5.23 billion nationwide in March, according to the call-blocking service YouMail. Some were spammy pitches for unwanted vehicle warranties or debt-relief services. Nearly half were straight-up scams. And there was often one common thread: They frequently came from somewhere other than they said they did.
New technology is providing a glimmer of hope that, someday, you might be able to safely pick up your phone again. Mostly, you’ll now be more likely to know callers aren’t using bogus numbers.
But don’t expect any silver bullets that will put an end to robocalls. Pending regulatory changes could even add to the flood.
“It is a cat-and-mouse game, and there are a lot of mice out there who are really motivated,” said Alex Quilici, chief executive officer of YouMail, which estimated there were 47.8 billion robocalls last year, up nearly 57 percent from 2017.
Many of the larger carriers are finally testing and adopting technical standards intended to ensure callers are using legitimate phone numbers. Currently, scammers often display bogus numbers — sometimes spoofing official or local numbers meant to inspire trust, or faraway ones meant to play on your curiosity. (The ostensibly Lithuanian callers that Marino encountered typically hang up before the targets can answer, aiming to bill them, like a 900 number, when they call back. It’s known as a wangiri scam — Japanese for “one ring and cut.”)
Anti-spoofing technology won’t end spam, experts said, but it should help.
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