Robocallers and your AE Brain

Criminals are always trying new ways to steal money from people. The elderly and disabled are usually the most common victim. Robocallers, telemarketers, and other methods have been stealing money by utilizing a person’s cell phone.

Autoimmune encephalitis has left a lot of us with varying levels of cognitive issues and others developing them. We are very susceptible to these techie-wannabe criminals. My caregiver was very concerned with me using my phone because of the danger of robocalls and telemarketers being able to exploit my condition. My caregiver was also worried about me either making purchases for whatever reason or clicking something in an email that would get my bank information, but that is a topic for a different day. I have improved enough where I can use my phone and other electronic devices, but I still have to be careful.

Even though cell phone providers try to block these robocalls and telemarketers, some do get through but, there are a few things we can do to protect ourselves.

I have an app installed called Hiya, but I am moving to a more drastic way to prevent spoof calls. I am using the DO NOT DISTURB feature on my phone, and I only allow calls from people in my contacts list. By enabling the DO NOT DISTURB feature, this will force calls from people not in my contacts list to go directly to voicemail. After listening to the voicemail, I can decide whether to add them to my contacts list or not.

I have also registered on the National Do Not Call Registry. All telemarketers are supposed to abide by this registry, but there are a lot that do not. Register at https://www.donotcall.gov/. Rumors are going around that registration expires, and we have to re-register frequently; however, this is not true.

Read a great article, How to stop annoying robocalls on your iPhone or Android phone, at The Verge that explains things better and has some beneficial information.