A mind-boggling statistic: The record number of robocalls are made in the U.S., jamming phone lines and frustrating consumers, around the clock.
Dallas is no exception, crowned the third most robocalled city in the country during the month of March with an estimated 120 million robocalls received.
Robocalls were made more than 1,000 times per second last month.
"I'm getting these (calls) over and over again," said Meagon in Hurst.
She works nights and tries to sleep during the day, but the phone keeps ringing off the hook.
"They're calling five to six times a day," she said. "I just don't want to have to deal with it. It's unfair."
According to a report released by YouMail, a private telecom company that monitors these numbers, the two DFW area codes hit the hardest are 214 and 817.
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But what comes in also goes out.
The DFW area has another dubious distinction in these numbers: Home to some of the nation's biggest robocall offenders, putting out a whopping 82.9 million of the dreaded messages last month, ranking us at number four among the list of cities that generated the most robocalls.
It's sobering news for Meagon, who has an 817 area code.
It's a growing crisis reaching epidemic proportions, according to federal regulators, who say cheap access to internet calling services plus the ability to spoof, or hide their true identity, makes robocallers all the more brazen.
The government has hit offenders with increasingly larger fines.
For example, the FCC proposed a record $120 million fine for a Florida man last year, punishing him for spoofing caller IDs.
Here are Samantha Chatman's solutions:
• If you have received any illegal calls, go to FTC.gov to report it.
• Consider downloading apps like NoMoRobo.
• Also, don't answer any unfamiliar calls. An answered call notifies the telemarketer that the number is active and encourages more calls to that number.
• Don't press any numbers and don't wait to speak with an agent. That'll usually lead to more calls.
• Consider downloading apps that help to block robocalls.
