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If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's that robocalls suck. And there's a big deadline today for phone companies to finally do something about it. But will it really make a difference?
Last year, the FCC announced it was going to force companies to implement a new technology called "STIR/SHAKEN" that's designed to reduce the more than 50 BILLION robocalls we get each year.
"Stir" stands for "Secure Telephone Identity Revisited" . . . and "Shaken" somehow stands for "Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using ToKENs." (???)
Basically, they're forcing phone companies to verify that the caller I.D. that pops up on your phone is a REAL I.D. And in theory, it should make it harder for scammers to use software to hide their number or trick you into thinking it's a legit phone call.
But will it work? Well, the answer appears to be . . . MAYBE. But don't expect a huge difference overnight.
Most of the big carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile have already been adding it. So it's not like they're throwing a switch today and robocalls will go away completely. Plus, smaller carriers have at least another year before they have to do it.
Robocalls are also just a cheap and profitable way to steal our money. So experts say scammers are already looking for new ways to get around it.
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