CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A new warning about those pesky robocalls you might get once, twice, maybe even five times a day.
NBC Charlotte has learned robocallers are using "Do Not Call Robocallers" to get your number.
"They're tricking you," said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police (CMPD) crime prevention officer Johnathan Frisk.
Consumers get roughly 98 million robocalls a day, according to government watchdog agencies. One of the ways experts recommend getting rid of robocalls is adding your number to the "National Do Not Call Registry." It turns out robocallers are recommending the same thing.
Here's how it works. The caller will ask if you'd like to be placed on the "Do Not Call List." The automated message then asks you to press two in order to do so. Sounds like a good idea right?
Not so much; here's the catch: Pressing any number during the call confirms that you have a working number.
"Why not just answer the call and hang up?" asked NBC Charlotte's Xavier Walton.
"Now they know it's a good telephone number and they're going to keep calling you back," said Officer Frisk.
Even he is not immune to robocalls.
"Almost daily," said Frisk.
If it's a number you don't know, police say let it ring and then go to voicemail. If you want to be more proactive, there plenty of apps at your disposal: Truecaller, Hiya, and Nomorobo, to name a few. There's also "Youmail" -- a free service that tricks robocallers into thinking you don't exist.
"So we play an out of service message, 'This number is out of service,' to any number that we recognize is a bad number," said Alex Quilici, Youmail CEO.
