Residents in Tamworth and the North West would not be mistaken in thinking scammers are getting more bold, more common, and more scary.
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Across the region, Telstra's Northern regional manager Mike Marom said in just one day, 500,000 calls were cut off at the quick, a "quite substantial" increase compared to previous years.
Telstra has seen a massive increase in the number of scammers hitting up our phones, with a sharp increase in calls centred around creating a sense of urgency.
As a result, a new automated blocking system has been testing its mettle and already proving successful in preventing scams from succeeding.
But while they may be getting more common, there is a combined effort behind the scenes to stop calls from getting to us.
In collaboration with other telcos, and the ACCC, are stopping a whopping 6.5 million calls a month as part of its Cleaner Pipes initiative.
This amounts to 1.5 million scam calls a week, which is half-a-million more than they were blocking previously.
"Year on year, the number of calls have increased dramatically," Mr Marom said.
"Mainly the scams are centered around a feeling of urgency, saying that people need to do something straight away or their internet will be disconnected, or money taken out, creating an illusion of urgency."
The nation lost an eye-watering $48 million to scams last year.
"No credible institution or a bank or the ATO will ever ask customers for personal information over the phone, or to act in an urgent manager, they give people a chance to process what's going on."
One of the most pervasive scam calls involves a recording outlining someone's arrest if they don't call a number back and sort their tax out with the ATO, or that their NBN would be disconnected.
"[The recording] is a new level of laziness on the scammer's behalf," Mr Marom noted.
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His tip: if you are worried about a call, go to the website and call the official number of the company, and not just call back the number the call came through on.
While a lot of people dodge calls from private numbers, he said more and more are using mobile or landline numbers.
"Another prevalent scam is the one ring call, and when you call them back fees are deducted," Mr Marom said.
"Whether or not people have more time on their hands now because of the pandemic, there has been a year on year increase in the number of scam calls, and as we rely more and more on technology we have to work collaboratively to stay on top of them."
He urges anyone who receives a scam call to report it to the ACCC, so they can work on ways to keep blocking them before they reach their final destination.
How it works
The network's team from Telstra has built a smart platform that monitors inbound calls on their network, looking out for suspicious characteristics to block them before they can ever reach customers.
"We were already blocking around one million plus calls per month using a manual process - so the automation is a huge boost to our capabilities," the company said in a statement.
"We built this technology in-house and we're proud of the scale and expertise of our cyber security and networks teams as leading Australia's telco industry."
