Scammers Working Around Federal Regulations To Continue Robocalls

Spam calls and text messages have skyrocketed recently, in spite of federal regulations that were supposed to crack down on robocalls.

Americans have been hit with 4.4 billion robocalls last month, a 16% jump from the month prior, according to spam blocking app YouMail.

And scammers are getting better and better at fooling consumers like Joanna Ganz, who says she was the victim of a recent call that looked as though it came from Chase Bank. The person on the other end of the call told her there was suspicious activity on her account and she needed to transfer money out of her account via Zelle to prevent further fraud.

"Everything he said led me to believe, because of the way he spoke and using the exact verbiage the bank uses — he had it down pat," Ganz said.

The call turned out to be a spoof of the multinational bank by a scammer. Within minutes, Ganz was out more than $2,500.

"I really never thought it would happen to me," she said. "I mean, that's my rent and bill money."

Last June, the FCC required all cell phone carriers to adopt caller ID authentication technology called stir/shaken with the goal of preventing illegally spoofed robocalls. The opposite seems to have happened — the number of robocalls getting through to consumers has gone up, back to the levels they were before the regulation.

"The problem is the bad guys aren't just sitting still. Instead of making up phone numbers, they're getting real phone numbers," YouMail CEO Alex Quilici said. "And now their real phone numbers are authenticated, and they look like they're good and they get through."

Quilici says the stir/shaken technology isn't enough to crack down on spam calls.

"You want enforcement to go, not only after the bad guys, but also the carriers that are supporting them," he said.

He says that consumers should also change their behavior.

"Just like we have trained everyone to not click on a link in an email, you need to not give your personal information out when a robocaller calls you and you need to run something on your phone to block as many as possible," Quilici said.

A Chase spokesperson said that because Ganz authorized the transfer, Chase cannot return the money. 

"Unfortunately, scammers target consumers from many banks," the Chase spokesperson said. "We urge all consumers to never share their banking passwords or send money to someone who tells them that doing so will prevent fraud on their account. Bank employees won't call, text or email consumers asking for this information, but scammers will."

Consumers who get a phone call about their bank accounts should never give out personal or financial information such as a checking account number, ATM PIN, credit card, or Social Security number, over the phone. Banks may only ask for this information when a customer initiates the interaction. Calls should raise a red flag if the caller threatens to close or suspend the account if personal information is not divulged, says the account has been attacked, asks to confirm, verify, or update account information; or sends money and asks for money to be sent back in return.