In just a matter of days a mysterious Maryland phone number starting with area code 240 has flooded Connecticut cell phones.
“I’ve had at least three or four in the past two or three days,” Paige Berscagt said.
Berscagt knows all about the new nuisance.
“It’s pretty obnoxious honestly, especially when I’m just like doing other things on my phone and then I can’t hang up and sometimes I’ll just answer and hang up,” Berscagt said.
Other people are now sharing their experiences taking to social media and posting screen shots of their Oxon Hill, Maryland robocall log. Some posts getting hundreds of comments about the same pestering problem.
“This time of year is especially ripe for numbers from the DC area,” Lora Rae Anderson, with the Department of Consumer Protection said.
Anderson says robocallers are preying even more on people after filing their taxes and this one appears to involve insurance. A voicemail left after one of the calls said, “Press the number two to be connected to an insurance specialist in your area or press nine to be added to the do not call list.”
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Anderson says robocallers don’t have the authority to add numbers to a "do not call" list and interacting with them will only lead to more of their calls.
“One of the pieces of data that people like this can keep on you is how long you stay on the phone and how much you interact and if you’re likely to interact tomorrow you’re more likely to get a call back,” Anderson said.
Anderson says don’t pick up and don’t follow the robocaller’s cues. Instead Anderson says call your phone provider to set up blocking or alerts for the number.
“Hopefully Maryland stops popping up on my random phone calls,” Berscagt said.
Anderson says the calls could eventually stop as soon as they started but be aware they could come in next with a new number.
“Often times it’s very challenging for regulators like us in like the FTC to even find these folks because by the time anyone got their code that’s used to mask their location they would be somewhere else,” Anderson said.