Public Radio East serves Eastern North Carolina by providing news, fine arts, and informational programming that challenges, stimulates, educates, and entertains an intellectually curious audience.

© 2026 Public Radio East

Public Radio East
800 College Court
New Bern, NC 28562

EIN 56-1802728
Public Radio For Eastern North Carolina 89.3 WTEB New Bern 88.5 WZNB New Bern 91.5 WBJD Atlantic Beach 90.3 WKNS Kinston 89.9 W210CF Greenville
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
US

Episode 789: Robocall Invasion

When a robot calls.
Renee Klahr
/
NPR
When a robot calls.

Warning: This episode contains some explicit language.

There are now a billion robocalls going to cellphones and landlines every month. Many of them look like they're from your neighbor.

It's not really your neighbor, of course. It's neighbor spoofing--which means using the internet to make it look like a scammer (who could be anywhere in the world) is calling from your area.When we asked our listeners if it's been happening to them... right away, we got about a thousand responses.

We know the basics: Scammers are impersonating nearby numbers. But why is it suddenly so popular? Who is on the other end of the line? And can they be stopped?

We talk to anti-spam specialists, the head of the FCC, and, scariest of all, we pick up the phone and talk back to the scammers.

Music: "Get It Get It" and "Wildoff." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts or PocketCast.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

US
Julia DeWitt
Ailsa Chang is an award-winning journalist and a host of NPR’s newsmagazine All Things Considered, as well as NPR’s daily news podcast Consider This.
Kenny Malone
Kenny Malone is a co-host for NPR's Planet Money podcast.
Sally Helm reports and produces for Planet Money. She has covered wildfire investigation in California, Islamic Finance in Michigan, the mystery of declining productivity growth, and holograms. Helm is a graduate of the Transom Story Workshop and of Yale University. Before coming to work at NPR, she helped start an after-school creative writing program in Sitka, Alaska. She is originally from Los Angeles, California.