WEBVTT - Your Best Defense Against Robocalls

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<v Speaker 1>Your best protection against robocalls? What's going on? I'm rich Demiro,

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<v Speaker 1>This is rich on Tech. Daily robocalls. We can't live

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<v Speaker 1>with them, We can't live well, yeah, we can live

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<v Speaker 1>without them, but it's kind of tough to imagine a

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<v Speaker 1>world without robocalls because they're so prevalent these days. The

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<v Speaker 1>worst part the calls are getting more frequent and scammers

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<v Speaker 1>are getting better and better at trying to make us

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<v Speaker 1>pick up the phone. So how can we stop this madness?

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<v Speaker 1>Recently I had a fascinating conversation with Jonathan Nelson. He's

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<v Speaker 1>the director of product management at Haya. This is a

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<v Speaker 1>technology company that creates software and solutions to help us

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<v Speaker 1>combat robocalls.

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<v Speaker 2>So we have our own algorithms, the machine learning algorithms

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<v Speaker 2>that look at call patterns that we see and can

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<v Speaker 2>pick out when particular scammer numbers come online. We also

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<v Speaker 2>get reports from users and work with the FCC and

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<v Speaker 2>the FTC.

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<v Speaker 1>HYA used to be whitepages dot com, one of my

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<v Speaker 1>favorite Android apps which would id all callers on my phone.

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<v Speaker 1>So why does it seem like we're getting so many

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<v Speaker 1>robo calls these days?

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<v Speaker 2>For robo calls to be successful, they really need three things.

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<v Speaker 2>They need to be able to make calls an extreme

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<v Speaker 2>high volume for cheap, which you can do now thanks

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<v Speaker 2>to voiceover IP or VOIPE technology. They need to be

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<v Speaker 2>able to do so without getting caught, which is easy

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<v Speaker 2>to do with the way the phone industry works these days.

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<v Speaker 2>And then they need victims who will fall for it,

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<v Speaker 2>which unfortunately.

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<v Speaker 1>We still have now. There are several reasons for these

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<v Speaker 1>robo calls. Many of them are selling products and services.

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<v Speaker 1>Others are just outright scams, but mainly they just want

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<v Speaker 1>us to pick up the phone so they can hook

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<v Speaker 1>us in some way. And one of the newest tactics

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<v Speaker 1>is called the neighbor scam. This is where the phone

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<v Speaker 1>number displayed on your caller ID looks a lot like

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<v Speaker 1>your phone number.

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<v Speaker 2>This voiceover IP software that they have makes it very

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<v Speaker 2>easy for them to impersonate a phone number that's similar

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<v Speaker 2>to yours automatically, so it's not done manually at all.

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<v Speaker 2>They're able to just do.

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<v Speaker 1>It in bulk. Nelson showed me a demo tool high

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<v Speaker 1>A built that does basically what the robo callers do.

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<v Speaker 1>I made up a phone number, he typed it into

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<v Speaker 1>the website in seconds, My phone rang and the number

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<v Speaker 1>that popped up on my caller ID was the number

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<v Speaker 1>I just made up. While robo callers use tools like

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<v Speaker 1>this in bulk, he says, there are lots of websites

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<v Speaker 1>available to even the everyday person where they can do

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<v Speaker 1>the same thing.

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<v Speaker 2>The way the phone system works makes it very difficult

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<v Speaker 2>for the government agencies to track down who created the calls.

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<v Speaker 2>It's a very, very long process. It has been ruled

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<v Speaker 2>that all robo calls are illegal unless you specifically requested it,

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<v Speaker 2>like a prescription reminder. So if you answer it no,

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<v Speaker 2>you were talking to someone committing a crime. So do

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<v Speaker 2>not trust anything you hear. If it's intimidating or encouraging,

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<v Speaker 2>you should not take it seriously.

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<v Speaker 1>So how do you stop the calls? Well, you can

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<v Speaker 1>grab an app like Hyas of course, to help you

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<v Speaker 1>identify and block these spam calls. AT and T has

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<v Speaker 1>their own app called call Protect, which you can download

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<v Speaker 1>for free, and that's basically a white label version of

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<v Speaker 1>highest software. And T Mobile offers free spam call protection.

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<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it's already activated on your account depending on your plan.

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<v Speaker 1>Others you might have to just tell them you want it.

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<v Speaker 1>Other carriers might charge you a small monthly fee for

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<v Speaker 1>the protection, but your absolute best defense just don't pick

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<v Speaker 1>up the phone.

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<v Speaker 2>If you've phoned your phone number for a long time,

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<v Speaker 2>if you'll applied for a lot of mortgages or payday loans,

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<v Speaker 2>that gets your number out into databases that these scammers

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<v Speaker 2>can buy. But a lot of it is just simply

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<v Speaker 2>they are trying numbers to see if anyone picks up,

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<v Speaker 2>and if you do answer the phone, you are known

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<v Speaker 2>to be a valid number and you will get more calls.

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<v Speaker 2>Answering the phone tells the scammer that the phone number

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<v Speaker 2>is active and so they will more than likely call

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<v Speaker 2>more frequently.

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<v Speaker 1>You can watch my video on how easy it is

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<v Speaker 1>for robo callers to spoof your caller ID. That's on

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<v Speaker 1>my website. Just go to richon tech dot tv to

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<v Speaker 1>watch it. And thanks for listening. If you like what

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<v Speaker 1>I'm doing here with the daily podcast, please rate and

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<v Speaker 1>review it in the Apple podcast app. Just hit that

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<v Speaker 1>link where it says write a review. I'm Rich Demiro.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon.