Millions of Puget Sound residents receive scam and robocalls each month. But now, there may be a new way to stop those calls for good,
Bothell’s Lindsay Raines said receiving IRS scam calls is taxing.
“At first, it scared me,” Raines said. “I would save their number and I would block it, but they would call with a different number.”
Again and again, she blocked the numbers. But her phone would just keep ringing.
“I just think it needs to be stopped,” Raines said.
According to the Robocall Index, 6.6 million robocalls and scam calls were made to those within the 206 area code in June of this year. That’s seven calls per person.
But a new app claims to put a clever end to those calls.
YouMail CEO Alex Quilici said his product ends robocalls by tricking scammers into thinking your number is no longer in service.
“When one of those numbers calls, we make it so your phone won’t ring, and then we play that ‘do do do, this number is out of service’ message just as if they’ve dialed a normal, inactive number,” Quilici explained. “That generally causes these guys to put your phone number on a list and stop calling it. Since they often call from many different numbers, once you stop it from one number, you’re stopping it from lots of different numbers.”
Here’s the scam and robocall scorecard for the rest of the Puget Sound’s Area Codes in June of 2017:
5.8 million calls were made to the 360 code, 4 million call were made to the 253 area code and 3.6 million to 425 numbers.
Since the Do Not Call registry doesn’t seem to work with scammers, Raines said she is willing to try anything to make the annoying calls end.
“Telemarketers are one thing, but people calling and threatening you is totally on a different level,” Raines said.
To learn more about YouMail and to see the top robocalls in your area, click here.
