美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Do I Know You?' And Other Spam Phone Calls We Can't Get Rid Of

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

All right. Cellphones have made our lives easier for sure, but lately, when you pick up the phone, you are likely to hear something like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This message is concerning your unsecured credit debt.

KING: These spam calls make up at least a quarter of all phone calls in the United States, but there is hope. The FCC is set to vote today on rules clarifying that phone companies can step in to block these unwanted calls. NPR's Yuki Noguchi has that story.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE¹: By now, this is a familiar drill. The phone rings. It's not a familiar number. Is it important or yet another spam call? The problem of phone spam is so pervasive² it's creating related nuisances for people like Dakota Hill. He says he gets 100 junk calls every month and also gets calls from people who think he's spamming them. They call saying...

DAKOTA HILL: Do I know you?

NOGUCHI: Or...

HILL: Why did you wake me up? And that was definitely an angry one.

NOGUCHI: In fact, Hill hadn't placed any of those calls. His number had been spoofed. That is, fraudsters used software to trick the caller ID system to make it appear as though calls were coming from Hill's phone. He explains this over and over to the people calling him, and not every caller is understanding. One woman chastised³ him.

HILL: She went on and on about how I was letting people use my phone and not controlling them (laughter).

NOGUCHI: There is an irony⁴ here. The cellphone has become our everything - our wallet, photo archives, computer and music library. But it's also becoming less useful as a phone. Consumer Reports found 70% of people no longer answer calls they don't recognize. Regulators and industry are combating junk calls but at least so far haven't succeeded. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates phone companies, had its own spam problem. Patrick Webre heads the agency's consumer bureau.

PATRICK WEBRE: We've seen recently scammers using our number, spoofing our number, to try to convince consumers that they're from the FCC and in some way get money out of them.

NOGUCHI: He says spam calls are the No. 1 consumer complaint and the agency's top priority. The FCC is demanding all U.S. phone carriers install technology to verify calls and flag potential spam. The deadline is the end of this year. Jonathan Nelson is on the front lines of this battle. Nelson is director of product management at Hiya, a Seattle technology startup that's designing ways to block spam. He tracks phone calls across the U.S. on giant computer monitors.

JONATHAN NELSON: You see this huge, vast area of green, which is good, all the good calls. But then there's this little red area that just bounces along, you know. It's the scammers.

NOGUCHI: Nelson says they devise clever, new ways of bilking people - the latest being the one-ring scam, which emerged May 3. That day, Nelson's monitors turned a flurry of red.

NELSON: It was explosion of calls. We'd never seen that level of volume before.

NOGUCHI: In this case, robo callers hang up after one ring, hoping to trick the victim into calling back on an expensive, international toll⁵ line, likely to West Africa. Scammers profit by taking a portion of the added fees. Many scams prey⁶ on fear of arrest or investigation⁷ by a government agency. Targets include immigrants, taxpayers⁸, debtors⁹ or retirees. Scams cost Americans an estimated $10 billion a year. Their success, Nelson says, is making people skeptical¹⁰ about answering calls.

NELSON: We're kind of seeing the death of the phone call.

NOGUCHI: Most cellphone carriers recognize they need to step up. Chris Oatway is associate general counsel for Verizon Wireless¹¹. He says this year, the company's investing more than ever in technologies to detect, identify and trace junk calls.

CHRIS OATWAY: There is an arms race where they are looking to evolve to get around some of the protections we have in place.

NOGUCHI: I would say that the carriers are not winning that arms race.

OATWAY: I think that's true. The key here is to restore trust in voice calls.

NOGUCHI: Doing so, Oatway says, won't be easy because telephone networks are so interconnected. If another wireless carrier doesn't flag a spam call, Verizon's network might not recognize it's a problem. That's just one way he says spammers might still get through.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

3 chastised   

v.严惩（某人）（尤指责打）( chastise的过去式 )

参考例句：

• He chastised the team for their lack of commitment. 他指责队伍未竭尽全力。
• The Securities Commission chastised the firm but imposed no fine. 证券委员会严厉批评了那家公司，不过没有处以罚款。 来自辞典例句

4 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

5 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

6 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

7 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

8 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

9 debtors   

n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Creditors could obtain a writ for the arrest of their debtors. 债权人可以获得逮捕债务人的令状。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never in a debtors' prison? 从没有因债务坐过牢么？ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

10 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

11 wireless   

adj.无线的；n.无线电

参考例句：

• There are a lot of wireless links in a radio.收音机里有许多无线电线路。
• Wireless messages tell us that the ship was sinking.无线电报告知我们那艘船正在下沉。