Those pretending to be from the IRS, the government, or a service provider, chances are you've gotten a scam call.   

Lucia Dunsmore received an offer to cut down her cable bill if only she paid over the phone right then and there.   

"And as soon he said that I realized it was a scam. So, I hung up two days ago and the phone rings. This is spectrum. Same thing," Dunsmore said.    

And it's not the first time someone's called Dunsmore pretending to be someone they're not.     

“The one before that was 'Grandma, this is your oldest granddaughter, and I am in desperate need. I had an accident. I said, okay, which one? I have ten granddaughters. I only have one, and she gave me a name. I said, gee, I don't have that one. Click. You know, they give you a sad story. How many fall for it?" Dunsmore said.  

The Federal Trade Commission says there was 2.4 million fraud reports and a loss of $8.8 billion  in 2022. With advancing technology, it's now possible to clone voices using AI, making phone call scams more believable.    

"So, think of these types of phishing scams that we have all seen on our text messages and our email, but more sophisticated, because now you're going to get a phone call from somebody that sounds like somebody you know," Hany Farid from the UC Berkeley School of Information said.   

Caitlin Driscoll with the Better Business Bureau says impersonation scams are the most common and those 65 and up are the ones who more often lose money from them.  

"Don't automatically trust your caller id either, because scammers can spoof caller id to have it appear that a company is legitimate customer service number is contacting your even just a name like they are FBI coming across to your caller id screen,” Driscoll said.  

To report a suspected scam call you can report it on https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker/reportscam.  

If you get a call from someone claiming to be a part of law enforcement, you can report it by contacting 1-800-CALLFBI or online at tips.FBI.gov.