(Radio Iowa) – With the busy holiday shopping season just ahead, Iowans are being warned to be on guard for a boost in robocalls and phone scams, which are getting more sophisticated using artificial intelligence. Matt Mizenko, general manager of Nomorobo — an app that blocks spam calls and texts, says there was a big spike in robocalls and scammers in recent weeks, including fraud attempts related to the federal government shutdown. “For Iowa, specifically, you guys were a little higher than average,” Mizenko says. “You guys were at about 18%, but in that 18% increase, we saw an increase in the amount of bad calls or calls that we are blocking for customers in Iowa — about 50%, which is about 20% more than the national average.” One phone scam he says to be especially mindful of right now relates to open enrollment for health insurance, and those could last for the next several weeks.

“Once we get past the holidays and get into the beginning of next year, we start to see the IRS tax scams. The people calling you and telling you owe this or you owe that, or you’re going to be in trouble, or we’re going to come take your house and take your car and all those sorts of things,” Mizenko says. “So you need to be vigilant. You need to be prepared for these things because like every year, they’re coming and they’re going to be looking for you.” For starters, he suggests you be wary of any call that comes in from an “unknown caller,” but even calls that look legit may not be.  “Anybody that calls you asking for information or — one of the new trends is — they already have a little bit of information about you that they have gotten using AI or something to try and increase your confidence that they’re real,” Mizenko says. “Treat all that stuff with skepticism. Obviously, don’t give out information. Don’t be afraid to hang up and call back whoever it is that they say they are.”

He recommends downloading some sort of phone protection product to provide another layer of security, quizzing callers about who they are and why they’re calling. “Bad guys aren’t going to go through that trouble. They’re not going to give you a fake name. They’re not going to press the button,” Mizenko says. “Most of the time, it’s a robot on the other end of the phone anyway, and basically that call will just disappear. And you kind of know, okay, it didn’t pass the screening process. It’s not somebody I need to worry about.” He says his company is also seeing a recent surge in “spoofed” government numbers, which appear local and legitimate, but are neither.