Study: Washington area code 206 gets highest amount of robocalls in U.S.
Sep 13, 2019, 5:42 AM | Updated: 8:49 am
Robocalls continue to plague Americans every day. (Pexels)
(Pexels)
You’ve likely received a generous share of them: some nonsense about your card being cancelled or the government calling or a great vacation opportunity. Well, it’s not a contest any area wants to win, but the area code 206 in Washington apparently receives more negative robocalls than any other in country.
While the phrase negative robocall may sound redundant, a new report from telecommunications company Transaction Network Services classifies them as nuisance calls and high-risk, and the 6,188,095 that hit area code 206 in August 2019 were the most anywhere. Next up was area code 817 in Texas with 2,236,345 negative robocalls. Area code 206 also lead for July of 2019 as well. A pattern is clearly emerging.
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Robocall expert Jim Tyrell of TNS believes this is part demographics, and part a result of the local tech scene, or at least people pretending to be connected to the local tech scene.
“You’ve got the likes of Amazon and Microsoft there as well. We’re seeing quite a bit of scams from people using Amazon numbers or pretending to be the Microsoft refund department,” Tyrell told the Candy, Mike and Todd Show. “‘There’s something wrong with your security firewall, so call us back and we’ll give you a refund.'”
“They’re obviously not going to give you a refund but get your personal information and scam you out of money.”
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TNS analyzed one billion call events to assess the trends, which also found that Americans receive 200 million unwanted calls per day, and that 30 percent of all U.S. calls involved either a nuisance, scam or fraud. There’s even a recent trend that includes AI-generated deepfakes that trick people into wiring cash. Just another reason to not pick up the phone.
For advice on how to protect yourself, listen to the rest of the interview here.
Listen to The Candy, Mike, and Todd Show weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
