How to stop unwanted calls

How to stop unwanted calls: Lenoir City man considers changing number due to excessive scam calls

LENOIR CITY, Tenn. (WATE) — A Lenoir City man said he gets calls all day long from scammers and he didn’t know what to do about it. Some callers want information while others remain silent, they don’t say anything.

Brian Hart is fed up with constant unsolicited phone calls coming to his home in Lenoir City.

“They’ll call you from 7 o’clock in the morning, all the way up until 9 o’clock at night. I mean every five minutes, every two minutes. It is all day long. There is one day I had 36 calls,” said Hart.

Most calls show they’re from Tennessee, but they’re actually spoofed, or deliberately falsified numbers.

“Yesterday, it was 23 calls. This has been going on for two and a half months. It has been going on a long time,” said Hart. “They would offer you subsidies, like food to go along with your Medicaid and Medicare. Then they would offer you, insurance, cheaper insurance. It is always something different. It is never the same thing.”

They will ask him for personal information including his social security number, his driver’s license and date of birth. When he tries to call one of the numbers back, it does not go through. Hart showed WATE the calls he has blocked, hundreds of them. It hasn’t helped.

“I have over 600 blocks on my phone. It doesn’t matter. They’ll still call you from the blocked number,” said Hart.

The Federal Communications Commission’s top consumer complaint and top protection priority is stopping unwanted calls, including illegal and spoofed robocalls. FCC has issued hundreds of millions of dollars in enforcement actions against illegal robocalls.

The government is empowering phone companies to block illegal or unwanted calls before they reach you. Plus, there are actions people can take. WATE showed Hart the FCC’s registry on how to report and stop unwanted calls. It is easy to fill out.

“I’ll do that. I’ll do anything. I was going to have my phone number changed yesterday. But I’ve had it for 15 years,” said Hart.

If you sign up with the registry, the FCC says many of the unwanted calls will stop within 30 days.

There are tools to block calls from any number that do not appear on your contact list, but many of those spoofed calls to Hart were not on his list anyway. So the FCC is requiring phone companies to implement caller ID authentication to help reduce illegal spoofing. Visit consumercomplaints.fcc.gov to report any illegal calls. The FCC said the complaint data enables them to respond better to call blocking and labeling solutions.