Skip to content

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work; others help us improve the user experience. By using the site, you consent to the placement of these cookies. Read our privacy policy to learn more.

Close
AICPA-CIMA
  • AICPA & CIMA:
  • Home
  • CPE & Learning
  • My Account
Journal of Accountancy
  • TECH & AI
    • All articles
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Information Security & Privacy

    Latest Stories

    • Incorporating prompt engineering into the accounting curriculum
    • Create a dynamic to-do list with Excel’s checkboxes
    • Another way to manage authentication texts
  • TAX
    • All articles
    • Corporations
    • Employee benefits
    • Individuals
    • IRS procedure

    Latest Stories

    • Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips
    • Taxpayer’s circumstances do not warrant equitable tolling
    • When does debt become worthless?
  • PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
    • All articles
    • Diversity, equity & inclusion
    • Human capital
    • Firm operations
    • Practice growth & client service

    Latest Stories

    • Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips
    • California issues draft guidance for climate risk disclosure
    • Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns
  • FINANCIAL REPORTING
    • All articles
    • FASB reporting
    • IFRS
    • Private company reporting
    • SEC compliance and reporting

    Latest Stories

    • SEC accepting Professional Accounting Fellow applications
    • SEC names new chief accountant
    • SEC ends legal defense of its climate rules
  • AUDIT
    • All articles
    • Attestation
    • Audit
    • Compilation and review
    • Peer review
    • Quality Management

    Latest Stories

    • AICPA unveils new QM resources to help firms meet Dec. 15 deadline
    • 8 steps to build your firm’s quality management system on time
    • Auditing Standards Board proposes a new fraud standard
  • MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
    • All articles
    • Business planning
    • Human resources
    • Risk management
    • Strategy

    Latest Stories

    • Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns
    • AICPA & CIMA Business Resilience Toolkit — levers for action
    • Economic pessimism grows, but CFOs have strategic responses
  • Home
  • News
  • Magazine
  • Podcast
  • Topics
Advertisement
  1. newsletter
  2. Cpa Insider
CPA INSIDER

Tips for stopping scam calls to your phone and business

Battle the bots for the sake of your sanity and your security.

By Hannah Pitstick
August 26, 2019

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2019. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

Related

June 1, 2019

Accounting firm data breaches: One state’s records

May 6, 2019

Why you can’t wait to prepare for disaster

February 4, 2019

Ways to ward off cyberthieves outside the office

TOPICS

  • Technology
  • Firm Practice Management

Everyone knows the feeling: You’re waiting for an important phone call and, at last, your cellphone rings. But instead of the voice of a client or co-worker, you hear a recording announcing, “You’ve won a free cruise!”

The false promise of a free cruise is just one of many scams perpetuated by robocallers, and such nuisance calls have been on a sharp rise over the past few years.

Automated call-blocking software company YouMail has been tracking legal and illegal robocall traffic across the United States since 2015 with its Robocall Index, and in that first year the company found that 1 out of every 6 calls received in the United States was generated by a machine — a total of about 1 billion calls per month. That number soared to a record-breaking 5.23 billion calls in March of this year, with nearly 30 billion total calls so far in 2019.

While some of these calls are legitimate and helpful, such as robocalls made by schools about closings or by pharmacies about filled prescriptions, many of them are coming from criminals trying to steal your money. Call blocking and management provider First Orion projects that by the end of this year, nearly half the calls we get on our cellphones are going to be scam calls.

Robocalling is attractive for scammers because they can reach a broad swath of people, telecom industry standards and federal laws haven’t caught up with the technology, and many people don’t know how to effectively deal with the issue.

Will Wiquist, Federal Communications Commission deputy press secretary, said via email that scammers can make money through fraudulent schemes or by gathering information they can sell, such as personal information about the consumer or even just the information that the number is a good target because the consumer answers when called. Among the more common tools used by scammers, Wiquist said, are “spoofing” calls that appear to be from a real number with a caller or recording impersonating banks or insurance companies with the aim of getting your Social Security number or credit card information.

While anyone with a phone can be affected by scam robocalls, people in the financial industry, who deal with a variety of sensitive data, have some special concerns. Here are some tips on how to combat unwanted robocalls to your personal phone and your business:

Advertisement

Hang up and don’t say anything. According to Chris Dawson, threat intelligence lead for Proofpoint, a cybersecurity company based in California, the best way to combat robocalls is to either ignore calls from unknown numbers or hang up immediately without saying anything. 

“Even if you say something as simple as ‘yes,’ there are scams that allow that to be used as consent for charging your phone” via an addition to your bill, Dawson said. “So just hang up and don’t speak.”

Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, agreed, saying if it’s a number you don’t recognize, don’t answer it. If it’s important, the person will leave a voicemail.

A robocall asking you for a credit card number or saying your credit card or Social Security account has been suspended is a red flag, and you should hang up immediately without saying anything.

Install a robo-blocking app. Protecting against robocalls is similar to guarding your computer against viruses. Just as you would install antivirus software on your computer, you should install a robocall-blocking app on your phone.

“The first thing you want to get on your cellphone is a robocall blocker — you can’t go naked without that protection,” Quilici said.

There are several apps on the market, including Nomorobo, Hiya, and RoboKiller. The FCC has a list of call-blocking resources organized by type of phone service.

Advertisement

Call-blocking apps all have slight variations, but they all aim to block or thwart unwanted automated calls. YouMail’s app, for example, identifies bad numbers and suppresses the ring on your phone, replacing it with an out-of-service message, so whoever is making that call thinks your number is invalid and stops calling you.

Thanks to a new ruling approved by the FCC this June that allows service providers to block unwanted calls as a default, it’s possible that you may not even need to install an app in the future, as long as service providers decide to get on board and start blocking robocalls before they reach your phone. Until then, you’ll still want to install a robo-blocking app, just in case.

Do your homework. It’s also important to resist reflexively calling numbers back. In the same way you would avoid clicking links in emails from unknown senders, you should consider unfamiliar phone numbers potentially problematic, Quilici said.

If you get a voicemail from a number claiming to be your credit card company, for example, you should go to the company’s website and find a phone number there or call the number on the back of your credit card rather than call back the number that left the voicemail.  

“The onus right now is on businesses and consumers to reach out directly to these organizations that claim to be contacting you and make sure they’re legit,” Dawson said.

Block numbers and help the cause. Aside from installing third-party apps and avoiding all interaction with robocallers, individuals can help build the database of “bad actors” by consistently reporting calls from spammers.

Individuals can also support the adoption of standards across phone providers, as many European countries have done with success, to help put an end to the deluge of robocalls. In the U.K., for example, communications regulator Ofcom teamed up with carriers to pool data and technical resources to find ways to prevent misuse of cell networks. Late last year, the FCC called on the telecom industry to help put an end to scam robocalls, and some companies have already begun testing authentication systems designed to circumvent spoofing. Unfortunately, change will likely involve an industrywide effort, so individuals can only do so much. 

Advertisement

“Sure, we can promote [these changes] and look for providers who are attempting to address the issue,” Dawson said. “But right now, it is very much the Wild West, and that means there’s a whole lot of lawlessness floating around and there are not really any good deputies in town, to extend the analogy.”

Tips for shielding your business from robocalls

The rise of scam robocalls is also a growing problem for businesses, both large and small. According to Quilici, businesses are not getting a large number of inbound robocalls to their landlines, in part because so many have automated receptionists, which robocallers don’t bother to try to get through. But small business owners who use cellphones have to deal with both inbound robocalls and the increased difficulty of connecting with clients who are no longer answering their phones. Large businesses likewise find that their calls are often ignored amid the deluge of automated calls and are also falling victim to company impersonation. Here are a few ways businesses can tackle the robocall issue: 

Set up an automated receptionist. If your office doesn’t already have one, Quilici recommends setting up an automated receptionist, which will act as a blockade to robocalls. Robots typically don’t want to waste time talking to other robots and will terminate the call soon after being presented with an automated receptionist.  

Screen your calls. If you’re a small business using mobile phones to connect with clients, but you don’t want to waste your day talking to robots, you can record a voicemail message that lets people know you’re screening your calls but will return those from clients and prospects right away. When they hear that greeting, they can leave a message and know you’ll call them back, Quilici said.

Be on the lookout for impostors. A growing issue for large businesses is their brands are being used in scams, according to Quilici.

“If you’re [a well-known credit card company] and there’s a scammer pretending to be you, telling people they’re late on their credit card payments, getting bank wire information, and committing fraud, you need to know about that,” he said. “I think the next big thing that businesses are going to see and want to work with is reputation management for their brand on phone networks.”

Hannah Pitstick is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Chris Baysden, a JofA associate director, at Chris.Baysden@aicpa-cima.com.

Advertisement
Advertisement

latest news

September 4, 2025

Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips

September 4, 2025

California issues draft guidance for climate risk disclosure

September 4, 2025

Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns

September 3, 2025

New: Digital assets practice aid addresses auditing of lending, borrowing

August 29, 2025

Guidance on research or experimental expenditures under H.R. 1 issued

Advertisement

Most Read

The No. 1 risk to retirement – and one way to guard against it
Tax provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Billy Long out as IRS commissioner after less than two months
Calculating AI’s impact on CPAs: New study quantifies time savings
AICPA unveils new QM resources to help firms meet Dec. 15 deadline
Advertisement

Podcast

September 4, 2025

Summing up economic sentiment and concerns about inflation and tariffs

August 29, 2025

Take a bold leap instead of a tentative step

August 28, 2025

Mark Koziel Q&A: Talent, sense of community, profession opportunities

Features

Calming nervous clients nearing retirement
Calming nervous clients nearing retirement

Calming nervous clients nearing retirement

7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs
7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs

7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs

Building a better CPA firm: Stepping up service offerings
Multi-colored plus signs

Building a better CPA firm: Stepping up service offerings

2025 tax software survey
Smiley, frowney, and neutral faces for Tax Software Survey.

2025 tax software survey

SPONSORED REPORT

Smart Strategies in Data Security and Risk Management

In an increasingly digital profession, data security has become one of the most critical challenges facing finance and accounting professionals today. Stay up to date with practical guidance to help you mitigate these risks and strengthen your security posture.

From The Tax Adviser

August 30, 2025

2025 tax software survey

August 30, 2025

Are you doing all you can to keep the cash method for your clients?

July 31, 2025

Current developments in S corporations

July 31, 2025

Paid student-athletes: Tax implications for universities and donors

MAGAZINE

September 2025

September 2025

September 2025
August 2025

August 2025

August 2025
July 2025

July 2025

July 2025
June 2025

June 2025

June 2025
May 2025

May 2025

May 2025
April 2025

April 2025

April 2025
March 2025

March 2025

March 2025
February 2025

February 2025

February 2025
January 2025

January 2025

January 2025
December 2024

December 2024

December 2024
November 2024

November 2024

November 2024
October 2024

October 2024

October 2024
view all

View All

http://JofA_Default_Mag_cover_small_official_blue

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Coming soon: Learn about important news

CPA LETTER DAILY EMAIL

CPA Letter Logo

Subscribe to the daily CPA Letter

Stay on top of the biggest news affecting the profession every business day. Follow this link to your marketing preferences on aicpa-cima.com to subscribe. If you don't already have an aicpa-cima.com account, create one for free and then navigate to your marketing preferences.

Connect

  • X Logo JofA on X
  • facebook JofA on Facebook

HOME

  • News
  • Monthly issues
  • Podcast
  • A&A Focus
  • PFP Digest
  • Academic Update
  • Topics
  • RSS feed rss feed
  • Site map

ABOUT

  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Submit an article
  • Editorial calendar
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms & conditions

SUBSCRIBE

  • Academic Update
  • CPE Express

AICPA & CIMA SITES

  • AICPA-CIMA.com
  • Global Engagement Center
  • Financial Management (FM)
  • The Tax Adviser
  • AICPA Insights
  • Global Career Hub
AICPA & CIMA

© 2025 Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. All rights reserved.

Reliable. Resourceful. Respected.