“Hello, this is Linda. This is the final reminder from the office of inspector general of social security administration. Your social security number has been suspended. We would request you to get back to us so that we can discuss about this case. Thank you.”
That is an example of something you might hear on a “robocall”. It's a little frightening and perhaps easy to see how someone might be caught off guard and led astray. Other times those calls are just annoying.
“It is just annoying,” says Dan Caldwell who actually installed an app on his phone to stop the calls. “I mean, I've done research to try and figure out how to get rid of it.”
Caldwell says those calls still get through.
“I have no idea who these people are and they're telling me I have a shipment coming and I haven't ordered anything,” he says.
The numbers are astonishing. According to a spam blocking app, Americans were hit with 4.4 billion robocalls in April. That's a 16% jump from the prior month.
Last June, the Federal Communications Commission required all cell phone carriers to adopt caller ID authentication technology called ‘Stir Shaken’ with the goal of preventing illegally “spoof” robocalls. But that hasn't seemed to stop them.
“Sometimes you can't block them until after they've called you,” says Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison. “So you should have a function on your phone to block them so that they can't call from that number anymore.”
Ellison says in 2019, 51 attorney generals signed a compact with 12 major phone providers in the country to try and slow it down.
“We got the cooperation of industry, but you know, it is not easy to stop these people,” Ellison explains. “They can come from multiple directions, but keep on blocking them and keep on reporting them to us.”
Robocalls have existed for many years in both the political world and for businesses that have looked for an inexpensive way to reach customers. But if the person getting that call doesn't consent to the call, it may be illegal under federal law.
According to a survey conducted by First Orion, 86% of respondents had received a robocall about a car warranty and 30% had received one within a week of the survey.
Ellison says even as an attorney general in Minnesota, he’s getting these same calls.
“I get robocalls, and it seems like these folks are trying to always sell some warranties on a car or something like that,” Ellison explains. “Who knows what they're up to.”
Experts remind customers that consumers who get a call about their bank accounts should never give out personal or financial information, like a checking account number, an ATM, a pin, a credit card or a social security number over the phone. They say banks may only ask for this information when a customer initiates the interaction.
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