How do you stop robocall spam? - Houston Chronicle

“Unknown,” your phone announces as it buzzes to life. The location: Katy, TX.

But the second you pick up, a voice barks out orders from the IRS and information about your fraudulent tax return. You hang up and the same thing happens again two hours later, this time via a 713 area code claiming to be from Houston.

With Houston residents receiving an average of 14 spam calls a month, according to robocaller tracker YouMail, it’s no wonder people don’t answer the phone anymore.

Harris County ranks No. 1 in Texas for the number of consumer complaints made to the National Do Not Call Registry, according to recent government data. Over a three-year period, Harris County residents accounted for nearly 10 percent of the complaints from the state.

What are common scams?

Robocalls can be harmless — data from YouMail suggests that the number-one automated caller in the Houston metro area in September 2019 was the Houston Independent School District — but many are malicious and created by companies that intend to defraud you of your hard-earned money.

MORE ‘HOW TO’: Digital clutter and the never-ending quest to hit ‘inbox zero’

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WHAT IS THIS?

I’m Gwendolyn Wu, and I’m writing “Houston How To,” a series on how to navigate the city and its complexities. Humans have an innate drive to improve themselves, and we’re always striving to live better, smarter, more efficiently by throwing countless dollars and hours at our problems. The Houston Chronicle wants to simplify that for you.

As a reporter, I usually ask the questions, but I can’t be the only one wondering how something works. What are things you need to know how to do, Houston? You can find me on Twitter at @gwendolynawu, or by email at gwendolyn.wu@chron.com.

And there’s bad news if you have a 281, 713 or 832 number. Scam calls increased 52 percent year-over-year in the Houston metro area and fraudsters are increasingly targeting the South, said Grant Castle, the vice president of engineering services and QA technology at T-Mobile.

“I have one guess: for whatever reason, it’s working for the scammers,” Castle said.

If you get one of those calls — or, if you’re like me, you reject everything and accumulate so many spoofed calls that your voicemail box is full — there are a few things you can do to verify whether the government is actually calling (hint: they’re probably not).

‘Do Not Call’ registries — do they work?

Many recommend putting your number on the Texas’ or the National Do Not Call Registry, which might keep the legitimate robocallers - such as your bank offering a new pre-approved credit card offer - at bay. Don’t think for a minute that it’s a sizable fraction of spam calls, though.

“It’s like putting a ‘no trespassing’ sign up when you live in a high crime area,” said Alex Quilici, YouMail’s CEO.

If an operation is hellbent on scamming you, it won’t care for a second how many times you’ve registered to opt out of spam calls.

Companies that don’t abide by the law face paltry fines, but in Texas, they face the possibility of prosecution from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

House Bill 1992, which went into effect Sept. 1, allows the attorney general’s office to prosecute companies that fake caller IDs and phone numbers, according to the Texas Tribune. If a state or federal court finds that a company has violated telemarketing laws, there could be some severe financial reparations like the ones that hit furniture store Conn’s earlier this year.

Can my phone provider stop this?

Yes and no. Telecommunications companies are aware of the problem, and there are some measures in place to identify spam callers.

At AT&T, for example, the company’s Call Protect service claims to automatically block spam calls, although tech blogs have found it actually targets marked “fraud calls” instead of calls the service believes are spam. It’s included for every AT&T customer, according to the company. A “plus” version is available for $3.99 per month that includes actual auto-blockers features like reverse number lookup.

Verizon’s Call Filter requires the download of an additional free app that identifies robocallers. Call Filter Plus costs an additional $2.99 per month for one phone line, and includes some features that can be done for free with the help of Google and knowing where the block feature is on your phone. Sprint also has a $2.99 per month “Premium Caller ID” service that identifies suspected robocalls through text and graphics warnings.

When a T-Mobile phone lights up with a suspected robocall, the provider labels it “Scam Likely” — an easy sign not to pick up. But then there’s Scam Block, an opt-in service where T-Mobile customers can type “#662#” into the dialpad, hit call and activate automatic blocking of all calls marked “Scam Likely.”

A new FCC-endorsed protocol called STIR/SHAKEN mandates that telecom providers must stamp each call with validation that the call originator is from the person who’s making it, rather than a scammer trying to falsify the caller ID.

The service provider where the call originates must attest to the trustworthiness of the number and whether the caller is authorized to use that number. It then sends that encrypted data over to the receiving service provider. The receiver verifies it before passing the call to the recipient.

AT&T and T-Mobile are using STIR/SHAKEN technology to authenticate calls. While plenty of spoofing calls are still getting through, the carriers said in August that more calls will be verified as device makers participate and network providers implement the standards.

Is there anything I can do to stop robocalls?

Everyone with a phone will be hit by a spam call, there’s no doubt about that.

“It’s not like you need to convince 10 percent of people on the scam,” Castle said. “Since they have tech where they can call millions and millions of people, you call 0.1 percent and that’s still lots of people.”

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There’s the whack-a-mole method of blocking every number that comes through, but that makes it impossible to catch every call before it comes. (Over the course of one week, I received 11 spam calls from 10 different numbers. I wanted to chuck my phone out the Chronicle’s fourth-floor windows - if only they opened.)

Third-party apps can be enormously beneficial where your phone provider falls short. YouMail (iOS, Android) collects data from reported spam calls — both the numbers and the content of the voicemails left behind — and matches it up with incoming calls to block them.

Other free apps, like Truecaller (iOS, Android) and Hiya (iOS, Android), also block numbers and often have features to identify and block spam texts.

“Most consumers don’t want to even have that spam call ring their phone, show up or even leave a voicemail,” Quilici said.

If you pick up the phone, don’t interact — don’t say anything, even if it asks you something like “press or say one to opt out.” The voice feedback confirms for the scammer that they’ve hit a working number.

Don’t dial back immediately. Instead, write down the number and search up the financial institution or government agency it purports to be from to see if the phone numbers match. Chances are that the person on the other line claiming to be from the Texas Department of Public Safety isn’t actually an agency representative if the phone ID says “Blocked Number.”

And if you want to make a dent in the Texas Attorney General’s office ever-growing to-do-list, put in a consumer complaint on their website. You can also call the consumer protection division at 1-800-621-0508.

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

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