I was walking through San Francisco when my phone buzzed. No caller ID, but the phone number was local, so I picked it up. Calling the man on the other end “irate” would be an understatement.
"Stop. Calling. Me." He bit off every word in anger.
Taken aback, I managed an eloquent, "Excuse me?"
"You keep calling me from this number," he said. "Stop it."
I knew what had happened, but it took five minutes to convince "George" (not his real name) that I was not the telemarketer who kept calling him using my number. He had already filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, and I let him know that I would do the same.
The plain old telephone has become a significant security problem. While security experts tend to focus on online fraud, fraud via the phones has skyrocketed. In 2014, 54 percent of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission concerned companies contacting consumers by phone, up from 40 percent in 2013. Identity theft, attempts to collect fraudulent debts and scammers posing as someone else are the top types of fraud, according to the FTC report.
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