Incidents of RoboCalls on the Increase

We have all experienced “junk mail” both in our U.S. Postal system and in our email world. More recently, the incidents of “RoboCalls” have been on the increase in the U.S. and the University has also experienced these types of calls. Unfortunately, some of these annoying Robocalls can also be a scam. As with any type of junk mail or email, you should not respond to a Robocall.

Scammers are able to make the caller ID display the number for an actual phone number that appears from a U.S. area code. And these calls can randomly change the area code display, in addition these calls can mass produce outbound calls to many different phone #’s in the U.S. via an automatic process. This masking of caller ID is known as “spoofing, and is an illegal tactic to get people to answer Robocalls, which are illegal in the U.S. unless you have asked to be put on a call list.

An example of a recent Robocall scam in the U.S. is described in an NPR article.

If you have any questions, please email telecom@nebraska.edu.