In the past, you would happily answer the phone knowing it was someone you knew. In 2025, it is much more likely that the caller is a pre-recorded message trying to sell you something, or worse yet, trying to steal your personal information.

The phone has become an annoyance, rather than a means of communication with loved ones and friends.

What can you do? The first thing to know is that, sadly, scammers have numerous technological resources at their disposal to take advantage of us and extensive access to phone numbers that are constantly bought and sold. There is a black market where our personal information is sold repeatedly. Unless you live in a cave and only communicate verbally or by sign language, someone has your personal information!!

We can take precautions, but only the phone service providers have the power to stop them from infringing on our privacy and attempting to steal our information. Many service providers are working on solutions, but international scammers are constantly adapting their tactics and appear to be more advanced technologically.

If someone calls you out of the blue and asks you to hand over personal information, wire money, or pay with a gift card, it’s a scam. It is always a scam. Hang up immediately. The most recent scams pretend to be EZ Pass, the postal service, social security, the IRS, your insurance company, job recruiters, and car warranty warnings.

The National Do Not Call Registry has been around for 20 years, and more than 244 million people have signed up for it. The Registry was designed to stop sales calls from legitimate companies. Scammers don’t care if you’re on the Registry. The FTC does not and cannot block calls. Even though the Registry can stop only a very small number of the unwanted calls, being on the Registry could reduce the number of calls you get and make it easier for you to spot scam calls.

There are two types of illegal calls – “robocalls,” which are prerecorded, and live calls. The overwhelming majority of calls reported were robocalls – 68 percent, although it is difficult now to tell the difference between AI-generated calls and human-generated calls.

A few types of robocalls are allowed under FTC rules without your permission. Below are some examples.

• Messages that are purely informational, such as your flight being canceled, a reminder about an appointment, a pharmacy reminding you of medications waiting, or letting you know about a delayed school or business opening.
• Debt collection calls. A business contacting you to collect a debt can use robocalls to reach you. But if they try to sell you services to lower your debt, that is most likely a scam.
• Political calls.
• Messages from charities. Legitimate charities are allowed to make these calls themselves, but if a charity hires someone to make robocalls, that call is illegal. A message giving you an option to stop these calls must be included.

 There are ways to protect yourself – call-labeling and call-blocking. The call-blocking or call-labeling option you choose will depend on whether you’re getting calls on a cell phone, traditional landline, or home phone that makes calls over the internet (VoIP).

Call-labeling shows “spam” or “scam likely” on your phone’s screen for incoming calls. You can find these apps easily online.

Call blocking is technology or a device that can stop a lot of the unwanted calls before they reach you. Be aware, though, that call-blocking services or apps could block some legitimate calls.

(Check out apps listed at www.ctia.org a website for the U.S. wireless communications industry.)

These apps may let you:

• block calls based on the geographic location or area code
• let you create lists of numbers to block, or lists of numbers to let through
• send a prewritten text message to the caller

Some apps access your contacts list. The application’s privacy policy should explain how it gets and uses your information. Make sure you read that.

Check out what your phone provider offers by looking at its website or calling customer service. There may be services that are free or come with your plan.

Most cell phones come with settings that allow you to block calls from specific numbers, though there might be a limit to how many numbers you can block.

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and it simply means that your phone makes calls over the internet. If you get your phone service through a cable company or use a phone/internet/cable bundle, you probably have VoIP service.

Some internet-based services and phone apps require all calls to be routed through their service, where they are instantly analyzed.

If you use a traditional landline that doesn’t use the internet (VoIP), you can buy and install a call-blocking device, which is normally a small box you attach to your phone. Speak to your phone provider to understand the best application for you. For more information on call blocking apps, see https://www.fcc.gov/call-blocking.

Call blocking can help, but some robocalls, and AI- and human-generated calls might still get through. If you receive an illegal robocall, hang up and don’t press any numbers, as this will only lead to more robocalls – you become a “live” number.

Mobile phones are a fact of modern life, and robocalls are as well. but you can take precautions to lessen the number of calls.

And please, keep reporting calls! The FTC takes the phone numbers you report and releases them each business day to help telecommunications carriers and other industry partners that are working on call-blocking and call-labeling solutions.

If you lost money to a scammer, report at www.ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and learn more at www.ftc.gov/robocalls and www.DoNotCall.gov

And as always, please pass it on to friends and family!!

This article was written by Catherine Blinder, chief education and outreach officer of the Department of Consumer Protection of the State of Connecticut. To learn more about how the Department of Consumer Protection can help, visit us online at www.ct.gov/dcp.