Many Americans have received more telemarketing and scam calls than usual over the past few months, and they are wondering what their number is doing on the National Do Not Call Registry, maintained by the FTC.
Some of the calls are clearly only meant for the most gullible, like those from some generic ‘card services’ who somehow represent Visa, Mastercard, and all of the major banks and want to increase credit limits.
Tom Woods may be having the same trouble. Two weeks ago, he received calls purportedly from the IRS about back taxes he owed, but would settle out of court with a $2,000 Target gift card, obviously. Woods eventually offered zoo animals as payment and the scammer realized the gig was up.
Where the government’s Do Not Call Registry has failed, a free phone app has come to the rescue. Mr. Number, made by Hiya, blocks potential scam calls based on user reports.
Mr. Number blocks calls when enough of the app users flag it as a scam. It’s a very simple and effective process.
It’s a great example of the use of decentralized knowledge, and with over 10,000,000 downloads, there’s plenty of knowledge to be shared.
This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on Sept 13, 2016.
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