It's the sound of frustration for many. A ringing phone with a local or random number that turns out to be a solicitor. We've all had robocalls.
If you think you're targeted more often, you might be.
Florida ranks third for the most robocalls received in March with 244 million, according to the YouMail Robocall Index.
The Tampa Bay area ranks 17th!
YouMail tracks all the unwanted calls dialing out nationwide. The company says in March alone there were 3.2 billion robocalls. That’s about 10 per person.
Bryan Oglbesy with the Better Business Bureau says don’t answer numbers you don’t know.
“It’s become such a big issue because companies and now even scammers are using this technology to contact consumers in the masses,” he said.
“If you receive these calls, make sure you document these numbers, label them on your phone so if you receive future calls you know that’s a sales call or a scam call coming into you.”
For instance, he created a “sales call health insurance” phone contact.
Many of the calls, even from legit companies, break the rules. If it gets bad, you might consider reaching out to an attorney.
“If you can find out the business that’s calling you, it’s important then to tell them in very clear terms, be polite, tell them to quit calling you, this is your cell phone and to take you off your list,” said Geoffrey Parmer with The Consumer Protection Firm.
Parmer says once you do that, you could be entitled to money if they don’t stop.
“A minimum of $500, up to troubled damages of $1,500 per call.”
Great advice.
- Also, there’s the National Do Not Call List as well as the Florida Do Not Call List. Subscribe your number to those and it could help.
- In addition, you can submit the numbers from those unwanted calls to the Federal Trade Commission.
- Lastly, you can just block the numbers or ask your phone provider to do it.
There are also some apps out there to help control robocalls. Apps like Truecaller, Hiya and Nomorobo.
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