We’ve been receiving dozens of calls to our cell phones, from lots of different phone numbers, telling us that the health care deadline has been extended and…; then we hang up, annoyed. Our Aunt in California is receiving a relentless amount of calls saying her Social Security number has been compromised and she needs to act. How do you stop these interruptions and the bullying? Is it just us?
According to NBC news, Americans received 30 billion (with a ‘B’) robo calls in 2017, up 19% from 2016, to both land lines and cell phones. Wow!
Turns out there are several services out there that are ready to address this very issue. For the cell phones, there are apps you can download; some have a fee, others have advertising. For the land lines, the phone has to have simultaneous ringing technology to use the services, something you can check into.
The services have a database of phone numbers they’ve collected. When their customers receive a robo call, the user flags it as a robo call and the service adds it to the database for everyone’s benefit.
When a known robo phone number calls you, the phone rings once then the call is rejected. You get a message in your call log showing that the call came in, it was blocked, and the service may even show you the transcribed text from the call that was blocked.
When you have a whole community that’s fed up with these interruptions, it can become a powerful database of info that can be shared for everyone’s benefit; check it out! – CMW