Gadget Daddy: Another victim of coronavirus -- robocalls - The Ledger

OK, they haven’t stopped. But they’ve slowed by 60% since the start of the lockdowns worldwide. Unfortunately, it’s only temporary.

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You, dear reader, have been no doubt spending a lot of time at home. And perhaps you have noticed something happening. Or, in this case, not happening. Like in the Sherlock Holmes' story "Silver Blaze," which Holmes solved because of "The dog that didn't bark."

In your case: The telephone that didn't ring as much.

Have you noticed? Instead of a few spam and robocalls a day, there are now approximately zero?

Since the beginning of the shutdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, robocalls in the United States have dropped nearly 60%. Florida's average calling rate is down 56%. Other states have had similar results.

The robocalls are placed by an auto dialer, which then recognizes when a human answers on the other end and immediately switches the call to a live boiler-room person who starts putting out a high-pressure sales pitch. Some call centers are in the United States, but the vast majority are outside the U.S. Many are in India.

YouMail, a tech company based in Irvine, California, tracks robocalls daily. “The pandemic is disrupting everything,” Alex Quilici, chief executive of YouMail, told The Los Angeles Times recently. “So you can say this is a benefit of the coronavirus.”

During the past several months, the robocall volume has gone like this: October, 5.7 billion calls (a new record); then, four months later in Febuary, 4.8 billion; and in March, 4.1 billion.

That 1.6 billion drop means a lot less aggravation in the afternoon and evenings for every American family. The coronavirus has accomplished something that the U.S. Congress, the Federal Communication Commission and the Federal Trade Commission has tried to do for years.

But Quilici said that the lull in robocalls may soon end. Just like many other workers, the scammers are gearing up to work from home. It's only a matter of time until they'll once again be back on the line.

This time, however, things are not going to be as easy. In the past few weeks, a strike force formed by USTelecom, the telecom industry's trade association, managed to cut off -- with the help of federal agencies -- phone calls that were suspected of preying on people. The calls included pitches for “free" testing kits, air-cleaning supplies, and do-nothing coronavirus tests.

“It’s progress,” YouMail's Quilici told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s showing that certain classes of these calls can be shut down.”

Last month, the FCC announced that it was finished giving telecom companies a voluntary time to enact high-tech measures designed to reduce the number of robocalls. Now, it's mandatory.

"It's clear that FCC action is needed to spur across-the-board deployment of this important technology,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. "The threat posed by these calls is particularly apparent now, with phone scammers preying on Americans’ fears during the coronavirus outbreak."

For now: Stop, children. What's that sound?

Silence from the telephone. For a change.

Lonnie Brown can be reached at: LedgerDatabase@aol.com.

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Gadget Daddy: Another victim of coronavirus -- robocalls - The Ledger
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