Every day for the past few months, my iPhone has rung with calls from different numbers and different area codes, all with the same pitch: someone is following up on my business loan application, and I just need to provide a few more details to get my $60,000 to $250,000 approved. I had never applied for a business loan.
When I started getting the calls, I let them go to voicemail because I didn't recognize the number. The messages left sounded human, complete with the pauses and "ums" you'd expect from a real person. But they weren't human. They were AI generated, and they were convincing enough that I could see how someone actually looking for a loan might call back.
According to the YouMail Robocall Index, the calls I was getting are part of a single campaign that blasted out an estimated 30 million calls in March alone, using at least 20,000 different phone numbers. The scam impersonates a "senior loan specialist" assigned to your "file" and pushes you to call back to finalize funding. YouMail says the campaign appears to violate telemarketing regulations that prohibit unsolicited robocalls.
The loan scam is a piece of a larger surge, according to YouMail. U.S. consumers received just over 4.2 billion robocalls in March 2026, a 12.5% decline from a year ago but the highest monthly total since July 2025. Telemarketing and scam calls accounted for 2.27 billion of those, or roughly 55% of the total.
On the consumer side, phone makers are finally giving us better tools than the blunt instrument of silencing all unknown callers. Apple's Ask Reason for Calling feature in iOS 26 automatically answers calls from unsaved numbers, asks the caller to state their name and reason for calling, and shows you a transcript on screen so you can decide whether to pick up. Google Pixel phones have offered similar AI-powered call screening since 2018, and Samsung brought it to the Galaxy S26 series this year. All three work on the same principle: force the caller to identify themselves before you pick up the phone. I can usually pick up a real call before the caller hangs up; otherwise, it goes to my Unknown Callers voicemail.
These screening tools are helpful, but they aren’t enough. The calls still come in, you’re still disrupted, and if the AI voice on the other end is sophisticated enough to say the right words, the transcript may look legitimate.
The real fix has to happen upstream, at the carrier and regulatory level, before the call ever reaches your phone. That was supposed to happen under the STIR/SHAKEN framework, but loopholes and implementation challenges are letting far too many calls through. Until we see that promised future, turn on call screening if your phone supports it. It won't stop the flood, but it may keep you from drowning.
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[Image credit: Suzanne Kantra/Techlicious via Google Gemini]
