Americans receive tens of billions of robocalls each year. Many of them are not from telemarketers, but from telescammers targeting senior citizens, says Dan Weber, President of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC).
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says the number one consumer complaint is for unwanted automated calls. During the first half of 2018, the number of robocalls increased by at least 50%. The Robocall Index, which keeps track of automated call frequency, says more than five billion such calls were made in the U.S. just last month. That’s more than double the number of calls made in the same period in 2017.
Last month, police in Pennsylvania arrested a man in connection with a telescam aimed at senior citizens. He was charged with swindling the elderly out of some $400,000. The man allegedly called seniors and told them their grandson was in trouble and needed cash immediately.
Another scammer called a 90-year-old woman in New York earlier this month and conned her out of $20,000 by claiming she had won a Publishers Clearing House prize.
In addition, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) says scammers have found ways to alter their caller IDs to make it look like the IRS is calling. The IRS impersonators threaten stiff penalties if the victims fail to pay money that they allegedly owe.
The Federal Trade Commission has created a scam alert that can help consumers avoid fraud at www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0060-10-things-you-can-do-avoid-fraud.
Although automated telephone calls are annoying, the statistics show that most them are legitimate sales calls. However, NBC News recently reported that as many as 40% of robocalls in the U.S. are from scammers. That means telescammers are targeting more than 10 billion potential victims a year. 50 Plus has created a special webpage dedicated to senior scam alerts at www.50plusmarketplacenews.com/senior-scams.