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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cAccording to the Federal Trade Commission, people all across the country are getting calls and calls and calls about their supposed loan application that they haven\u2019t applied for,\u201d said Herb Weisbaum, a contributing editor with Consumers\u2019 Checkbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FTC said people report getting between five and 20 of these urgent-sounding calls every day \u2014 from different phone numbers. Those who respond find out the so-called \u201cloan\u201d is on hold because more information is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weisbaum said if you receive this type of illegal robocall, the best thing to do is hang up. And if there\u2019s an offer to press a number on your keypad to remove yourself from their call list, never respond to that prompt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t press the number to unsubscribe. They sometimes say if you want to unsubscribe, press the number. The Federal Trade Commission says that only lets the dishonest company know your number is good, and they will keep calling more often,\u201d Weisbaum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scammers use urgency and helpfulness as a tactic to get people to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, one call received by a WTOP staffer said, \u201cThe (loan) approval window is closing soon, and while you could always reapply later, I\u2019d like to help you get it wrapped up now while everything is still in motion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weisbaum said a couple of things could happen to those who end up on the phone with such scammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNumber one, they can figure out a way to steal your money by trying to get you to give a credit card number or something like that. The other thing is they can steal your personal information and use it for all kinds of identity theft,\u201d Weisbaum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanging up or not interacting with them at all is the best way to avoid their snares, \u201cbecause they\u2019re trained, and they know the longer they keep you on the phone line, the more likely you are to do what they want,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weisbaum said he\u2019s heard people say they turned over their information to a scammer because they just wanted to get off the phone: \u201cNo, no, hang up! You don\u2019t have to give them information to get off the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is a robocall?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A robocall is a call that plays a recorded message, usually trying to sell you something or get you to hand over your personal information, Weisbaum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to the FTC rules \u2026 it\u2019s illegal unless the company has written permission to contact you and try to sell you something. You have to give them specific written permission to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Legal robocalls are allowed for \u201csurveys, purely informational or charitable purchases, political purposes, as long as there\u2019s no sales pitch. And it also allows debt collection robocalls if you truly have a debt and that company is trying to collect from you,\u201d according to Weisbaum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you tell the debt collector to stop calling you, \u201cThe law says they can\u2019t call you anymore,\u201d Weisbaum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you haven\u2019t given the company permission to call you, and the robocall is not purely informational \u2026 like the cable company\u2019s confirming a service, or the dentist says you have an appointment next week \u2014 that call is illegal, and it\u2019s probably a scam,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry, \u201cthe scammers don\u2019t care about that, Weisbaum said. \u201cNow, it\u2019s important to be on the Do Not Call list. It will reduce the number of calls you get, because all the good retailers will follow the law and not call you. But that does not prevent you from getting an illegal robocall from all the bad guys out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s a tale as old as the first tricky scheme \u2014 whatever that was, long before any of us had cellphones. But there are ways to make sure you don\u2019t… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDhcL2Rvd25sb2FkLTYud2VicD9maXQ9MzEwJTJDMTYzJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiR2V0dGluZyBjYWxscyBhYm91dCBhIGxvYW4gYXBwbGljYXRpb24geW91IG5ldmVyIGFwcGxpZWQgZm9yPyBIZXJlXHUyMDE5cyB3aGF0IHRvIGRvLCBhY2NvcmRpbmcgdG8gYW4gZXhwZXJ0IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.3P11m0ctaT5DHJD6MKuoM1WJnjw1Y5TUKnotsivmNlIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":57447,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/download-6.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[12039,12038],"class_list":["post-57446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-according-to-an-expert","tag-getting-calls-about-a-loan-application-you-never-applied-for-heres-what-to-do"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57448,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57446\/revisions\/57448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}