(For advice on how to protect yourself and your loved ones from financial scams, check out “Marketplace’s” “Brains and Losses” series.)Īs a producer here at Marketplace received her third call with a spoofed number in one day, we got to wondering: How did it get this way? Our phone numbers feel so personal, and they are almost as important as our Social Security numbers to identify us when we call our banks or just want to collect points at the supermarket. The most annoying ones are spoofed calls - calls that seem to be from a trusted number, whether that’s the IRS or someone in your neighborhood.
Industry groups estimate half of all calls to mobile phones will be scam calls this year.
Last week, telecom companies signed an agreement with states aimed at combating the problem of robocalls.
