The spam call that greets you by name did not guess it. Somewhere upstream, a data broker sold a record that ties your cell number to your name, your address, and often your age and relatives — and it sold that record to whoever paid, including the operations behind the robocalls you field every week. A phone number is …

Reporting a Robocall Is Not the Same as Blocking One Most people treat an illegal robocall as a nuisance to be silenced and forgotten — block the number, swipe it away, move on. That instinct is understandable, but it quietly removes you from the one process that actually shrinks the problem. Blocking protects your …

Why the Do Not Call Registry Is Not Enough The National Do Not Call Registry stops legitimate telemarketers — companies that follow FTC rules and scrub their call lists every 31 days. It does not stop robocallers, which by definition are operating outside the law. The FTC received over 1.8 million Do Not Call …