Robo-calls keep ringing and ringing Americans' phones — and the government shutdown could make the never-ending assault even worse.

With federal agencies closed, consumers have been left with few options to defend against the tidal wave of unwanted automated calls coming from telemarketers, scam artists and debt collectors that target Americans' home phones and mobile devices at all hours of the day.

It’s not your imagination. You are getting bombarded with robocalls.

Robocalling, a practice where marketers send automated voice messages to thousands of phones at once, surged 60 percent in the U.S. last year to 48 billion calls, according to preliminary year-end data from YouMail, a robocall management company that tracks the volume of calls.

Jeffrey Lewis Knapp saves the four to six telephone numbers his caller ID logs each day. At night he seeks his revenge, calling back the people he thinks are illegal robocallers. “How can I help you?” the Arizona-based retiree says he asks the people who answer.

The social engineering part of cybercrimes will become more rampant and the final countdown for knowledge based authentication begins in TRUSTID’s, top five fraud and customer authentication predictions for 2019.

The social engineering part of cybercrimes will become more rampant and the final countdown for knowledge based authentication begins in TRUSTID’s, top five fraud and customer authentication predictions for 2019.

Lawmakers are continuing their push to end robocalls.

On Wednesday, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced the REAL PEACE Act, which would expand the Federal Trade Commission's authority to crack down on telecom companies that facilitate illegal robocalls.

Thousands of holiday dinners will be interrupted this season by buzzing phones bearing recorded messages from telemarketers, promising wealth and threatening financial ruin. But here’s something to be thankful for: By next year, the national plague of robocalls could be in retreat.

Call centers are facing the potential of fraud from inside and outside their facilities, and they are taking multi-pronged approaches to tackle these security challenges. At the same time, experts say that fraudsters will be busy this holiday season, and will be particularly active on online marketplaces.

The U.S. government said Tuesday that it plans to take aim at the scourge of unwelcome phone calls and spam text messages plaguing millions of consumers — but one of its proposals drew sharp rebukes, with critics concerned that it could enable telecom giants to censor legitimate communications.

It is estimated that by early next year, nearly 50 percent of all the calls you get on your cellphone will be robocalls. Last month alone, more than five billion robocalls were made.

Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced legislation Friday that would levy a hefty fine on illegal robocalls and attempt to prevent them from reaching consumers in the first place. 

Your cellphone rings. You don’t recognize the number on the screen, but the call appears to be coming from your area code – perhaps even your exchange. Maybe the display shows it’s coming from your town.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission got on his high horse this week and told phone companies they better do something about robocalls. Or else.

(CNN) Thirty billion robocalls were made to American consumers in 2017, according to YouMail, a robocall-blocking service. And while robocalls, made with an automated dialer or using a prerecorded or artificial voice, torment Democrats, Republicans and independents alike, even on this issue, Washington leadership has found a way to divide along party lines.