Almost 160 million spam calls are being made to Americans every day, and it’s only getting worse. This averages out to over 1,900 spam calls being made every second.
Unless you are using a high-quality spam blocking app, you have almost certainly experienced a spam phone call very recently. People have gotten so sick and tired of dealing with these spam calls that they have started to seek out opportunities to get revenge on them.
What Are Spam Calls?
A spam call is a name for whenever a person, business, or program makes unsolicited calls to people in order to try to learn their personal information.
Generally, these calls will be made by computer programs that will play a prerecorded automated message when the person answers or if it goes to their voicemail. These are known as robocalls, and they are the reason why millions of spam calls can be made in a single day.
These calls are often viewed as a simple annoyance but don’t underestimate them. Robocalls and other phone scams have cost the American people nearly $30 billion in the last year alone.
Over time, these scams have evolved to become pretty elaborate and are much more effective at conning their victims than in the past.
What Can You Do To Prevent Spam Calls?
Despite solid efforts recently, legislation has largely been ineffective at stopping spam calls. As a result, it will largely fall on you as an individual to protect yourself against them. Fortunately, there are quite a few ways that you can do that:
Change Your Phone Settings
Whether you have an iPhone or Android, your phone will come with various settings that can help you to block spam calls. The overall process is fairly simple and should take less than a minute to complete.
iPhone
Open your Phone app and select Recent.
Locate the spam number and select the Info icon.
Scroll down until you see Block this Caller and select it.
Confirm your decision by selecting Block Caller.
The number will automatically be sent to voicemail from now on.
Android
Open your Phone app and select Recents.
Locate the spam number and select it.
Select the Info icon on the lower right.
Tap the Block option on the bottom right.
Confirm your decision by selecting Block.
The number will automatically be sent to voicemail from now on.
Use An App
Your phone gives you the option to block individual numbers, but it doesn’t do much against spam calls at large. Using a third-party app is easily the safest bet for blocking spam calls.
Several different options are available to you, but the Burner app is one of the consistently highest rating services. Where most apps use a blacklist approach to spam, Burner uses a whitelist, and the results are very stark in contrast.
Blacklists will be filled with numbers that have been confirmed as spam or are suspected as spam. These numbers will be blocked by the app and never make it to your cell phone. Although generally effective, blacklists can be bypassed whenever a spam caller uses a different number that hasn’t been identified as spam yet.
A whitelist approach works the opposite way. You will generate this list yourself and include the numbers you will allow to be sent to your phone. Quite simply, if the number isn’t on this list then it won’t make it to your phone.
While blacklists might be effective in the 90th percentile, whitelists can guarantee a 100% chance of blocking all spam calls and texts.
How Can You Get Revenge On Spam Calls?
Whether you’ve been the victim of a phone-related scam in the past or you are just simply fed up with dealing with them, you may have been thinking about ways to get even. You would not be alone with that feeling.
Recently, a startup named DoNotPay was launched and offered a service called Robo Revenge. The idea is fairly simple: scam the scammers. The difference is that this service is totally legal and within your rights.
The process can get a little bit complicated, but the gist of it is you sue the scammers and can receive as much as $3,000 from them. The service is currently live on the DoNotPay website, and they even have an app available now.
How Does Robo Revenge Work?
The whole process of this service is pretty clever but will take a little bit of background information to be able to explain.
First, it’s important to cover the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as Robo Revenge wouldn’t be possible without this key piece of legislation. One of the first attempts to curb the rise of marketing calls, the TCPA restricted the use of automatic dialing systems and prerecorded voice messages during telemarketing calls.
These rules were updated a year later to include a requirement that anyone making telephone solicitations have strict procedures for maintaining do-not-call lists.
In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission created the National Do Not Call Registry. This list is made up of phone numbers of people requesting to limit the number of telemarketing calls that they receive.
Once you have registered, you will have a 12-month renewable window to receive no telemarketing calls. If you do receive a call, then you would be open to creating a lawsuit against the caller.
It’s through these government institutions that Robo Revenge is possible. The way that it works is fairly ingenious:
Robo Revenge will first help you to register your number on the National Do Not Call Register.
When a spam caller inevitably calls you, you would use the temporary credit card number provided by Robo Revenge.
The spammer will then try to collect the money from the card, but it won’t work since it hasn’t been activated.
The attempt to collect this money would still be sent through the credit card network.
In order to receive the payment, the scammer would then need to provide their name, address, and phone number to the credit card company.
The scammer won’t receive any money since the card is useless, but now you will know their personal information.
This information is sent to DoNotPay, who will share it with you and create a letter demanding financial restitution from the scammer or legal consequences would be pursued.
You would then print out the letter and mail it to the address provided.
Most often, a settlement check will arrive. If not, you would take the person to small claims court and have an airtight case against them.
It’s important to note that while there have been plenty of successful cases involving Robo Revenge, it’s far from being a guarantee.
The legal process can be long, complicated, and expensive, so make sure that you are prepared for a fight. Most often, scammers will accept defeat and send a settlement check, but if not, you will have to take it to court, and it may cost you time and money in the process.
The Takeaway
There is a very satisfying and rewarding feeling that comes when thinking of scamming a scammer. The best part is that a service like Robo Revenge isn’t even a scam: it’s completely legal.
It’s entirely possible that you can end up receiving a few hundred or even thousands of dollars by using Robo Revenge. However, while the thought of justifiable revenge might be very tempting, it’s probably safer just to avoid getting involved with scam callers altogether.
Instead, you should just change your phone settings or download Burner for a free seven-day trial and block them out of your life once and for all.
SOURCES
Robocalls are back in a big way in 2021
How to Stop Illegal Robocalls: Tips and Resources
Americans lost $29.8 billion to phone scams over the past year