There is no problem with your credit card,” or, even worse, “Do you want to go on a free cruise?” You hang up, frustrated and annoyed. So you answer it, and hear something like: “This is an important message about your credit card. Either way, it doesn’t make sense to risk missing an important call.
The phone displays a number, not a number you recognize, but that’s not so odd there are plenty of people who might call you that aren’t in your contacts list, whether it’s your dentist or the DMV or even a friend whose phone died and had to borrow someone else’s. If you use your cellphone often, you’ve likely been hit with some annoying, unwanted phone calls. Luckily, we can fight back with even newer technology: a very helpful app called Truecaller, which has been in the press lately for adding a new widget and more features. But it was only a matter of time before the telemarketers and spammers caught up with technology, and many of us are once again menaced by unwanted calls.
We made the shift from making our calls mostly on landlines to mostly on cellphones, and cellphone numbers, being unlisted, are harder for an unscrupulous company to get a hold of. There was a golden period for a few years where many of us didn’t really have to deal with telemarketers and spam phone calls.
