CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Everyone gets and hates robocalls, and finally, after millions of complaints across the United States, progress is being made to help stop the annoying calls.
In North Carolina, the ball got rolling two years ago, when Attorney General Josh Stein helped put together a coalition of state attorneys general to put pressure on cell carriers to limit the calls. Since then, WCNC Charlotte's parent company, TEGNA, investigated, produced and aired a series of stories about robocalls and what's being done to stop them.
And yes, the calls are still coming but the good news is, not as many — and hopefully not at all.
WCNC Charlotte is always asking "where's the money?" If you need help, reach out to the Defenders team by emailing money@wcnc.com.
"We know we have a long way to go to stop the calls but they have blocked some 33 billion illegal and spoofed robocalls [nationwide]," Stein said. "Some are still coming through and there is more work to be done, but we are making progress."
Verizon Wireless said it has protected over 78 million customers protected from over 13 billion unwanted calls to date using a technology called Stir Shaken. It has a fancy name, but in the end, the technology works by screening your calls and filtering out spam.
"You can go to the call filter app, if you want to choose to block all categories, you can do that," Verizon spokesperson Kate Jay said.
All other major carriers have something similar. Customers can check their carrier's protocols and recommendations to stop those annoying calls.
Contact Bill McGinty at bmcginty@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook.
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