PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A consumer advocacy group is putting pressure on telecommunications companies to comply with new FCC regulations to help crack down on phone scammers, but they also suggest measures that people can take to avoid being a victim.
Penn Pirg Staff Advocate Emma Horst-Martz said her organization estimates that the scammers behind robocalls not only steal millions of dollars from victims.
"They cost us Americans an additional $3 billion in wasted time," she said.
Horst-Martz added lawmakers have taken steps to alert people about scam calls.
"Most phone companies were supposed to install the caller ID verification system by June 30, which was three months ago, although some small providers and ones with older lines got an extension until 2023," she said.
"The Federal Communications Commission said every phone company needs to report on its progress on installing the new technology by September 28, but compliance with these updates has been pretty bad."
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In Philadelphia, she said top area provider Comcast has been doing a good job in complying with the new standards, but there have been problems with smaller companies in more rural areas of the state.
There are also many tips that she said consumers can use to help prevent them from being victimized.
Horst-Martz suggested not to make payments to people who solicit money from you over the phone, not to respond to recordings either by pressing buttons or leaving messages, and not to leave your full name on your outgoing voicemail message.
"There's really no sense in giving a potential scammer more information than they may have had already," she said, adding that if you get an automated scam call, the best thing to do is hang up.
"You shouldn't push any buttons or ask them to take you off the list, because pressing one or a number really just confirms to the company that you're a live person, and that can get you sucked into even more robocalls in the future," Horst-Martz said.
Meanwhile, she added that if you get a call that you think could be a scam, call the company that they claim to be from directly.
Horst-Martz said as government entities crack down on robocalls, they expect the number of text scams to increase.
"That's really the next frontier for the Feds to tackle," she added.
Click here for more from Penn Pirg on how to spot and avoid being the victim of a phone scam.
