Spam phone calls have been a nuisance for years, but over the last several months, it seems like there's been a surge of them on our cell phones. Just yesterday, the FCC imposed a record fine of $120 million on a Florida man who is accused of placing nearly 100 million robocalls during a brief 3 month period as part of a “telemarketing scheme.” Robocallers have made their calls even more deceptive by masking their spam with local, genuine looking phone numbers. Last year, the FCC voted on a rule that allows phone companies to block robocallers who use fake caller ID numbers to conceal their actual identities. So far, this has proved ineffective and Ajit Pai, the FCC Chairman, says that an estimated 2.4 billion robocalls are placed to Americans each month.
