Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when with telemarketing scams they do deceive.

Lesley Fair, a Federal Trade Commission attorney, used this parody of a line from Sir Walter Scott in writing about an FTC settlement with a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider accused of facilitating scam telemarketing calls. It sent warning letters to another 28 VoIP companies in 2020, including some it said were assisting COVID-19 scams.

The director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection said, “VoIP service providers play a unique role in the robocall ecosystem, allowing fraudsters and abusive telemarketers to call customers at a fraction of a penny per minute.”

In February, RoboKiller issued its annual report on spam calls and texts in 2020. RoboKiller is an app that says it eliminates 99% of spam messages. While “spam call” and “scam call” and “robocall” aren’t entirely synonymous, most deceptive calls are made by computerized autodialers.

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Key findings from the report include:

Quarantine orders actually drove down the number of spam calls in 2020, including a 50% decline from April to June. By September, spam calls were back to their normal level of 5 billion or more per month. Spam texting is on a dramatic rise, totaling 55.4 billion in 2020. That was an average of 264 per person and exceeded the number of spam calls.

The state receiving the most spam calls was Texas, with Arkansas in fourth place. In a separate study, YouMail found that the 901 area code in Memphis ranked 11th among all area codes across the country for the number of robocalls received in May 2019. YouMail provides a free call protection app for mobile phones.

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RoboKiller found the top scam categories perpetrated via robocalls in 2020 were Social Security, vehicle warranty, religious, vacation offer, and credit card offer scams. I can attest to the high number of bogus offers to sell me a vehicle warranty or reduce the interest rate on my credit cards.

In one elaborate robocall scheme, including a call from someone caller ID said was with the Memphis Police Department, I was advised that my SSN had been found on documents involved in drug smuggling and money laundering. A warrant had been issued for my arrest and seizure of my bank accounts, but I could resolve the matter by paying a fee using gift cards. People fall for such scams.

RoboKiller predicts that scammers will design even smarter, more believable phone scams in the future. Spam calls could reach 70 billion and texts 90 billion by the end of 2021.

The FTC and BBB offer these tips for avoiding a robocall scam:

• Don’t answer a call if you don’t recognize the number.
• Hang up if you do and hear a recorded sales pitch.
• Use call-blocking technologies provided by your carrier or mobile apps.
• Report unwanted calls to the FTC.