They Just Won’t Quit

Do Not Call doesn’t seem to work. Blocking doesn’t seem to work. What to do? Since January of this year, almost 6,000 scams involving phone calls have been reported to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker. As soon as one picks up the phone, their number is registered as active and can be sold for other scammers to contact. Tips from the BBB to stop these calls for good are: (1) Do not answer calls from numbers you do not recognize. Wait for a message and analyze it. (2) Be cautious of automated messages asking for you to “Press 9” to be taken off the call list. Do not do it, just hang up. Why? By pressing any number you have alerted the caller that they have reached an active number and they will continue to call and to sell the number to other scammers. (3) Hang up immediately if you feel a scammer is impersonating a legitimate business, organization or charity. Call the organization directly and speak to a representative. (4) Join the Do Not Call Registry at DoNotCall.gov to cut down on legitimate telemarketing and sales calls. (5) Write down the phone number of callers violating the Do Not Call Registry and file a scam report with the BBB’s Scam Tracker at https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/us and the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call List at https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email. (6) Nomorobo.com is an app that takes consumers off any phone call that comes in as a robo-call, an automated or machine-made call. Nomorobo is free for landlines and $1.99 for cell phones. For more information, go to: bbb.org/atlanta.