Americans receive 2.56 billion robocalls every month, and the average scam call victim loses $3,690. What most people do not realize is that these calls are not random — scammers purchase your phone number, name, age, and other personal details from data brokers, enabling highly targeted fraud that is far more convincing than generic spam.
How Data Brokers Fuel Phone Scams
Data brokers collect your personal information from public records, social media, purchase histories, and other brokers, then sell compiled profiles to anyone willing to pay. These profiles typically include:
- Your phone number — often linked to your full name and address
- Age and date of birth — used to target seniors with Medicare scams or younger people with student loan fraud
- Income estimates — scammers target people in specific income brackets
- Recent purchases or interests — enabling convincing pretexts for calls
- Family members' names — used in grandparent scams and emergency fraud
- Home address — adds legitimacy when scammers reference where you live
Robocall campaigns use these lists of phone numbers with contextual metadata to boost response rates. A scammer who knows your name, age, and that you recently moved is far more convincing than one making a cold call.
AI Is Making Scam Calls More Dangerous
In 2026, scammers are using AI voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate family members, bank representatives, and government officials. With your personal information purchased from data brokers, these AI systems can create convincing scenarios that reference real details about your life — making it nearly impossible to distinguish fraud from legitimate calls.
Common Scams Enabled by Data Brokers
When scammers have your personal details, they can execute highly targeted fraud:
- IRS impersonation — calling with your SSN and claiming you owe back taxes
- Bank fraud alerts — spoofing your bank's number and referencing your account details
- Medicare scams — targeting seniors with specific enrollment information
- Tech support fraud — referencing your actual devices or software
- Grandparent scams — using AI voice cloning with family members' names from data broker profiles
- Utility disconnection threats — referencing your actual utility provider and address
- Student loan forgiveness — targeting people in the correct age and debt brackets
Why Call Blocking Alone Is Not Enough
Call-blocking apps like Nomorobo, Hiya, and carrier-provided spam filters help, but they are reactive — they only work after your number is already in scammers' hands. Scammers constantly rotate phone numbers and spoofing techniques to evade blockers. The real solution is preventing your information from reaching scammers in the first place.
How to Protect Yourself
Remove Your Data From Broker Sites
The most effective long-term solution is removing your phone number and personal information from data broker databases before scammers can purchase it. This cuts off the supply of targeted data that makes scam calls effective.
Register on the Do Not Call List
Register your number at donotcall.gov. While legitimate telemarketers must honor this list, criminals ignore it — so this step alone will not stop scam calls, but it reduces legitimate marketing calls that can desensitize you to answering unknown numbers.
Do Not Answer Unknown Numbers
Let unknown calls go to voicemail. Legitimate callers will leave a message. Answering confirms to robocall systems that your number is active, which increases future call volume.
Never Give Information to Inbound Callers
No legitimate organization — not your bank, not the IRS, not the police — will call you and demand sensitive information or immediate payment. If a call seems legitimate, hang up and call the organization back using the number on their official website.
Use Call Blocking Tools
While not a complete solution, these tools reduce the volume of scam calls:
- Enable your carrier's spam filtering (AT&T ActiveArmor, T-Mobile Scam Shield, Verizon Call Filter)
- Install third-party apps like Nomorobo, Hiya, or Truecaller
- Enable silence unknown callers on iPhone (Settings → Phone → Silence Unknown Callers)
- Use Google's Call Screen feature on Android
Report Scam Calls to Help Others
Report scam calls to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and to your phone carrier. These reports help authorities identify and shut down scam operations. In March 2026, the FCC cut off Belthrough LLC from U.S. phone networks after tracing it to illegal robocalls — enforcement that is only possible when enough people report.
New Regulatory Protections in 2026
California's Delete Act created the Data Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP), which allows state residents to submit a single deletion request that goes to all registered data brokers. By August 2026, data brokers operating in California are required by law to honor these deletion requests within 45 days.
The CFPB has also proposed rules specifically targeting data brokers that sell personal information to scammers, stalkers, and spies — though regulatory changes take time to implement and enforce.
The Real Solution: Cut Off the Data Supply
Call blocking treats the symptom. Data removal treats the cause. When your phone number, name, and personal details are removed from data broker databases, scammers cannot purchase them to target you.
PrivacyOn continuously monitors and removes your personal information — including phone numbers — from over 100 data broker sites. Because brokers constantly re-add data from new sources, ongoing monitoring is essential. PrivacyOn's 24/7 surveillance ensures that when your number reappears on a broker site, it gets removed again before scammers can purchase it.
Users who remove their data from broker sites typically report a significant reduction in scam calls within weeks, because the pipeline of fresh, targeted data dries up.