NEW SHUTDOWN THREAT The Government Shutdown That Suspended "Do Not Call Registry" Caused Huge Spike In Spam Calls Nationwide-Businesses And Consumers Experienced Onslaught Of Robocalls Stretching Hitting The Record Of Nearly 5.5 Billion For January ROBOCALLS EXPERT: Ethan Garr, RoboKiller’s VP of Product. Don’t pick up that phone. Americans have been plagued with an increasing number of robocalls — and the government can’t do anything about it. Both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are closed due to the government shutdown, which means Americans can’t file complaints on FCC or FTC websites and regulators are unable to investigate. In the last few months, the FCC has slapped some of the worst serial offenders with multimillion-dollar fines. The FTC’s website for its National Do Not Call Registry now redirects to the message: “Due to the government shutdown, we are unable to offer this website service at this time.” Consumers can’t add their numbers to the list and telemarketers cannot refer to the list before making their calls. Scammers have even begun using the government shutdown itself to target Americans, the Washington Post reported. READ: nypost.com/2019/01/14/why-robocalls-have-gotten-worse-since-the-government-shutdown/ ABOUT: RoboKiller, the call blocking app that gets revenge on telemarketers by countering spam calls with Answer Bots, today released the latest data from its RoboCall Data Tracker showing that there was major spike in Robocalls in January breaking the record monthly number. Robokiller directly attributed this substantial increase in spam calls to the "Do Not Call" National Registry being suspended do to the shutdown. "This allowed spammers and scam artists to directly bypass the "Do Not Call" list that was designed to keep them at bay. Many businesses were affected as their phone systems being inundated with robocalls stretching their infrastructure thin. said Ethan Garr, RoboKiller’s VP of Product. “Our Answer Bots were fighting back against this wave; answering these calls, engaging the live operators and wasting the telemarketers’ time. Since August, 2018, Robocalls nationwide were tracking at around 5 Billion per month. In January, the newly released data showed a spike to nearly 5.5 Billion calls. RoboKiller collects data for its tracker through its award-winning mobile apps for iOS and Android. As the app identifies a