‘They’re doing it on the backs of patients,’ one cancer center warns Congress about robocalls

For most Americans, robocalls are an inescapable annoyance, thanks to scammers, telemarketers and debt-collectors that target smartphones and landlines at all hours of the day.

For a cancer center in Tampa, though, these auto-dialed calls are a danger to doctors and patients alike — one that should prompt Congress to take action.

The plea for help came Tuesday as House lawmakers embarked on a new effort to crack down on robocalls that rang consumers’ mobile phones roughly 26 billion times in 2018, according to one industry estimate. The calls largely are the work of fraudsters who mask their identities by using phone numbers that resemble those that they’re trying to contact, a tactic known as spoofing that’s meant to dupe consumers into answering the phone and then surrendering personal information…

Source:https://wapo.st/31cWMy8