There's nothing worse than answering your phone, only to be spammed with credit card offers, home security plans, or thickly-accented call-center workers asking you if you've already purchased your burial plot even though you're only in your 20s or 30s.
It's created two generations of individuals who won't answer their phone unless it's a call they're expecting — and even then we're more likely to let it go to voicemail and call you back. We get it: robocalls suck, but the fact that they're allowed to continue isn't just to annoy you.
It's both an economic problem and a governmental one. Here are eight things you need to know about robocalls, from an economic perspective.
1. They're the Fault of a Government Failure
For decades before the advent of the internet, the U.S. Postal Service was the most important artery of communication in the country, and the federal government spent millions maintaining an inspection force to protect its users from fraud and harassment.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service was the biggest investigative part of the federal government before the FBI ever existed. Unfortunately, the government didn't invest those kinds of resources to protect the same American consumers from scam robocalls. They didn't start bringing cases against robocall companies until 2018. Also, the office that handles unwanted robocalls at the FTC only has 43 employees — and they're all part-time.
2. The Numbers Are Climbing
If you feel like you're getting more spam robocalls than ever, you're not wrong. In 2017, there were 30.5 billion robocalls placed to American consumers. In 2018, that number climbed to 47.8 billion.
In 2019, it's expected to nearly double, with 75 million calls projected for the year. The FTC allows robocalls for information and reminders, debt collection, political calls, and charity outreach, but in 2018, more than 60% of those 47.8 billion calls were spam or scams.
3. It's Good Business — For Scammers
Most Millennials grew up in the era of the Nigerian Princes, so we know how to avoid those scams that are too good to be true, but for every savvy millennial, there's one that doesn't understand how these scams work.
Scammers might be paying for each robocall they make, but when the payoff is the hundreds or thousands of dollars they can scam from the unsuspecting, it's worth the expenditure. This 'industry' (and we use the term loosely) makes billions of calls and scams people out of millions of dollars a year.
4. The Do Not Call Registry Doesn't Work
The federal government's Do Not Call list was touted as the solution to unwanted calls and telemarketers and it does work — to an extent. The problem with the DNC list is that it's only designed to stop calls from businesses that are following the law.
The scammers blowing up your phone at all hours are not following the law, therefor screaming at them that you're on the do not call list doesn't mean much.
5. They Make Money Even If You Don't Answer
This is the biggest surprise to most people. Most of us don't answer our phones anymore because there's a 50% chance that it's a scam caller — and that's not just us pulling out a random number. According to the FCC, nearly half the calls you get in 2019 will be scams.
Declining the call doesn't stop the robocallers from making money though. The caller ID system, which is decades old at this point, pays a small fee each time the caller's name is displayed. In the case of robocall scammers, who are making thousands or tens of thousands of calls a day, that small fee adds up quickly.
6. They Can't Block Them All
The federal government is looking for new ways to stop this deluge of robocalls, but they're running into one major roadblock — the fact that they can't block all robocalls because some of them are legitimate. Your doctor's office or dentist might use robocalls to let you know about an upcoming appointment. As annoying as it is, those political robocalls you get during election season are also legal.
Blocking robocalls outright isn't an option, which makes it more difficult for the FCC and the federal government to make effective changes.
7. Help Might Be On The Horizon
The federal government is trying to fix their mistake and has more than half a dozen different legislation options on the table as of April 2019 to try and stop this robocall deluge.
From the "Help Americans Never Get Unwanted Phone calls (HANGUP)" act which would prevent debt collectors from being able to use robocalls to the "Repeated Objectionable Bothering of Consumers on Phones (ROBOCOP) Act" which will require phone carriers to provide options for blocking robocalls unless you've consented to the call or it's coming from a public safety service, help might be on the horizon.
8. The Only Way to Win is Not to Play
When it comes down to it, with robocalls the only way to win is not to play. In this case, we suggest opting into your carrier's spam blocker service or downloading a third-party robocall blocker like Nomorobo, Robokiller, or Hiya Some are free while others, like Nomorobo, cost $2 a month.
The End of Robocalls?
It looks like robocalls might be a fact of life for some time to come. If you don't want these scammers to make money off of your caller ID information, even if you don't answer the phone, consider investing in a robocall blocker app for your phone. Or just shut off the ringer, let them go to voicemail and ignore them forever.
