December 2022 Newsletter
Friends,
Amy: “Michael, please, can you show me a good time?”
Michael: “Look at this picture. Those people are having fun.”
We tease because we love. I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving and are getting ready to celebrate Christmas with your families.
If you still need help with Medicare for 2023, the Annual Election Period (AEP) runs through Wednesday December 7, 2022
Kind Regards,
Michael Antonini
What’s New
My Call Recording phone number is (516) 928-4952.
Call Recording is now required of all sales calls. I hope Call Recording protects the consumers from scams because there are so many people calling and pretending they are from Medicare or the Medicare help center. These are not real calls. Don’t Get Scammed! Please call me if you are ever in doubt.
You can still call my regular cell phone (203) 521-9671 for most things.
When I do applications on the phone now, I also must record those calls.
The good news is ….I’m good at it already thanks to people working with me since October 1.
The Definitive Guide to Reducing Robocalls
You've had it with relentless robocalls, the automated messages that at best are telemarketing and at worst are pitches from criminals who want to steal your cash or your identity.
Enough is enough with the deluge of unsolicited voice mails and the calls from phone numbers that look like they're local but are spoofed (or disguised) by crooks who claim to be with the IRS or to have important information about your car warranty.
You’ve tried blocking numbers, to no avail. You’ve signed up on the National Do Not Call Registry. No difference. You’ve complained to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Nada.
Scam calls rebound from COVID crash
When the coronavirus pandemic erupted in early 2020, “we saw the first major drop in robocalls because call centers were closed, but now robocalls are exploding,” says Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, which develops robocall-blocking software.
Robocall volume in the U.S. hit an estimated 5.7 billion calls — an all-time high — in October 2019, then sank to about 3 billion a month in the spring of 2020, according to YouMail’s Robocall Index.
Spammers and scammers have since rebounded, with robocalls averaging 4.1 billion a month over the past year. That’s more than 1,500 calls per second.
“Having computers dialing a bunch of numbers is a fast, efficient and extremely cheap way to get to as many people as possible,” Quilici says, adding that scammers need only a tiny slice of call recipients to respond for their endeavors to pay off.
Some robocalls are legal
Amid the din, some robocalls are legitimate. Charities, pollsters and medical-service providers are among those who can legally autodial you. The American Red Cross can robocall you to ask for blood donations, for example, and your doctor’s office may do so to remind you of an appointment.
But when it comes to bad actors, keep in mind that mobile apps can beat them back. Also, importantly, the FCC now requires voice-service providers to implement call-authentication technology on the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their networks.
The James Bond–sounding "Stir/Shaken" authentication enables providers to verify that the caller ID information transmitted matches the caller’s real phone number. This anti-spoofing step was mandated by the federal TRACED (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence) Act, an AARP-endorsed measure signed into law at the end of 2019.
A united front
On the corporate side, the trade group USTelecom established the Industry Traceback Group to identify the sources of illegal robocalls and work with governments to “bring to justice individuals and entities responsible,” says Patrick Halley, USTelecom’s senior vice president of policy and advocacy.
The source of an illegal robocall — even one from outside the U.S. — often can be identified in 24 hours, Halley says. While billions of illegal and unwanted robocalls are still placed annually, fewer of them are reaching consumers, thanks to call-authentication, call-blocking and call-labeling tools that designate incoming calls as spam, he says.
For example, AT&T, the largest U.S. carrier, says it is blocking more than 1 billion robocalls a month.
Best practices for consumers
To join in the fight, consumers are urged to:
Download a call blocker. First, try a free solution to see if it does the trick. No-cost services from firms such as YouMail and Nomorobo are carrier-agnostic. (Nomorobo is free for landlines but $1.99 a month for cellphones.) Your mobile carrier has free tools, too.
Experiment with call-blocking tools, apps and options, to strike the right balance between the calls you want and those you don’t. It may take trial and error to avoid a “false positive,” the term for a legitimate call that is stopped.
Let a call go to voice mail if it gets through a robocall app and you don’t recognize the caller. If the caller claims to be from, say, Citibank, don’t call back a number left on voice mail. Use a number that you know is legitimate, such as one on a statement or credit card.
Hang up if it’s a live person calling, as computer-based robocall systems allow. Do not engage.
Learn what security tools your provider offers.
Heed the latest advice from the FTC and the FCC.
Important Dates
Annual Election Period (AEP): through December 7, 2022
Winter Solstice: Wednesday, December 21, 2022 at 4:48 pm EST (I ask Amy if she will be my winter girl)
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah 2022!
All the Best,
Michael