Hiya, a spam-blocking app analyzed 450,000 of its users to figure out how big of a problem robo calls are. It found that in 2018 Americans received 26.3 billion of these calls (via The Washington Post).
[PSA: Robo Call Asks AT&T PIN and Social Security Number]
Robo Calls
That’s a big jump from 2017 where Americans got 18 billion robo calls. There was even a report last year that predicted that as many as half of calls in 2019 could be spam.
As our phones continue to be inundated by robo-calls, many people no longer want to pick up the phone at all.
Alex Algard, Hiya CEO
Carriers are attempting to help the problem with a technology developed by T-Mobile called SHAKEN/STIR. It’s a type of caller authentication that follows similar principles to web encryption. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint will also implement this.
[Apple, Google, FCC Team up to Stop Spam Robocalls]
Photo by Fezbot2000 on Unsplash
Tell me about it. I created a silent ringtone in GarageBand, it is the default ringtone. Friends get custom ringtones.