Sudden spike in scam calls June 2022

Anyone else having the same issue?  I get them all the time, but not 7 or 8 a day, every single one a completely different number & area code!  I suspect when I answered one call and chewed the guy out he got mad and put me on every other scam list.  Or, did some law change recently and now its a free for all?

There’s definitely been an increase this month. My guess is everyone is wanting to stay out of the summer heat so working in scam call centers has lead to more popping up.

My suggestion is for each you get, report each one to any call blocker you use or know of. Most have spam report numbers (like Nomorobo), it’s a slow monotonous process but hopefully it’ll help one less person get a call or get scammed.

There really is no pattern these days, as everyone eventually gets a "spike" in calls and if you ignore them, they eventually drop off again.  There wouldn't be any law change that would allow callers to call more often, since there never was any limits on how many calls a given number could receive.

Cold sales callers who break the rules are implied to have a limit of zero calls. They may also place as many negative numbers of violative calls as they like.

We get threads like this every so often, and none of them ever pin down a Grand Unified illegal call trend. If we all published our own inbound call logs, I think we would see more difference than similarity in both call frequency and call premise. The broadest national trend climbs on a graph each year. Maybe we're in a long view spike now, if we ever reach a peak.

We had a huge increase after having none for a long time. Every day, twice a day, same beginning 3 numbers, different end numbers. I keep blocking numbers.

Blocking specific numbers is a fools errand.  They're usually spoofed, and as such, constantly change, and rarely reflect the true calling party's number.

I started answering all unknown calls but not saying anything when I do. I don't say "hello" and don't reply to the robocaller saying "Can you hear me?" or a live person going "Is anyone there?" What I found is that the number of scam/telemarketer calls I get has dropped off significantly. I think it is because computers continue to call a number until it detects that an agent has spoken with someone, so if I decline the call or block the number, the computer keeps calling, and calling, and calling. But if I answer and don't say anything, the computer sees that an agent reached a person and my number isn't called again. I use to get 4-8 scam/telemarketing calls a day.  Now, I get 2-6 a week.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on the calls will eventually drop off statement.  I do not answer any of those calls and some known scammers will attempt to call me again despite my call blocker cutting them off at the pass.  Even blocking a certain area code and prefix has not been effective as a deterrent although they are slowing down.  This has been my experience which will undoubtedly be different for everyone.

For me, calls had dropped off for a couple months. Since the end of May/early June I have seen a huge increase, 2-7 per day. I have had 5 scam calls today so far, from random and fake CallerIDs.

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I have to respectfully disagree with you on the calls will eventually drop off statement.

Well, simple common sense should be enough to understand that if you suddenly get a "spike" in calls, then ignoring them they will eventually drop off.

Some people will probably experience a sudden "spike" in calls if a debt collector starts calling, as they are persistent and take much longer before they eventually stop calling, so yours may very well be debt collectors.
There is no formula on how long it takes, that would apply to everyone, but in general the "spike" in calls will eventually drop off.

DVS is the predominant at the moment, with GREG FROM SOLAR a close second.
Greg from Solar is a SCAM-BOT, I ask to transfer to a person who is ALWAYS a non-English speaker in a very loud and noisy call center. Russian and Indian accents are hard to understand.

DVS called again and tells me they have documents they sent to me and were returned, and I need to call the client but they cannot tell me who the client is. Nor can they tell me what it is about, nor can they tell me where the letter was sent to.

Now they threaten me with legal action, they will contact my HR department but will not (cannot) tell me the company I work for or even what city it is located.

It appears if you look up DVS in the dictionary, it says, "SEE SCAMMER"

I think that this is a "your mileage may vary" situation.
Personally, I have seen a decrease in the number of unwanted calls I have received over the past few months (decreasing from the mid-30's (average of ~1/day) in January-March down to 21 in May and 14 in June (average of about 0.5/day)) while I have not changed how I deal with incoming calls during all that time.  While this is a nice trend, there is nothing that guarantees it will continue; the number of unwanted calls I receive in July may go down or it may go up.  I believe that most of that depends on how many different callers (whether telemarketers or scammers) each set their robo-dialing equipment to call numbers in my area code around the same time.  Right now there are not many pointing their campaigns in my direction, but that is sure to change, the only question is "when".

John wrote:

I suspect when I answered one call and chewed the guy out he got mad and put me on every other scam list.

That is doubtful and is more a coincidence than a cause of the call increase.  He may have put your number back into their own call queue to re-dial it from their dialer, but with modern robo-dialing equipment there is no need for telemarketers/scammers to share/sell call lists between one another.

Do you think that temporary reduction was due to "Shaken and Stirred"?  It "seemed" to have work for a while until the TMs found a way around it.

I receive anywhere from 3-8 spam/scam calls / day