After phone scammer came to her mom’s house, NJ woman created solution

🔴 A NJ woman created a phone vetting system against phone scammers

🔴 She first developed it to protect her elderly mother

🔴 Clients can set up either a landline account or mobile app

SPOTSWOOD — Senior citizens are the most preyed-upon targets of phone scammers, and these bad actors are getting sneakier and bolder.

The backstory

A Spotswood woman named Gogie Padilla said her 85-year-old mother was getting plagued by these predatory phone scammers. They called her mother day and night for months, and then one day, a man showed up on the elderly woman’s doorstep.

The well-dressed man said he was there to take her “defective” bank card so the bank could issue a replacement. They had the right name, address, and even the right bank.

Padilla’s mom did not recall telling anyone where she banked, or her address, but this man knew it. Thankfully, a family member had just arrived and sent the man off before Padilla’s mother fell victim to the scam.

But after a fruitless search for a service or a product to protect her mother from future scams, Padilla decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2019, she created a phone vetting service called “Answer Sure” to protect her mother. In 2020, she turned it into a business to help other elderly people and the most vulnerable from these bad actors.

How does it work?

Answer Sure is a call vetting service. Clients can either set up a landline account or one on a mobile app by filling out a client profile and then selecting a plan.

Go to the website and fill out the profile. Clients can do it for the two available landline plans, as well as the app for both the Android and Apple IOS cell phones.

The client then creates a unique password or phrase that callers must know when trying to contact the client, Padilla said.

Using a “call forward” feature, all calls to the client’s phone number are re-routed via the app or a 24-hour staffed call center.

“Every call that comes in, the client must know that password or phrase. If they know it, the call is released, and then, and only then, will it ring the client’s telephone” she said.

If the caller does not know the password or phrase that the client set up, then either a representative will take and relay a message to the client, or the caller is blocked.

Getting in front of these calls is key, Padilla said.

“I made it to protect my mom. I was losing sleep at night and my siblings as well, thinking who’s calling her next. To be very honest, it’s a process of thinking or gatekeeping. I created a barrier that not only will protect our clients from these calls, but that they also know when their phones ring, that call has been vetted, and they’re answering it with a sense of certainty,” Padilla said.

Uniqueness

What makes Answer Sure so different from other phone scam services is that this has a landline option. Most services are for cell phones only. Padilla said there are over 12 million active landlines in the U.S., and the majority of people who have them are 65 and older.

Success

Padilla said she’s happy to say that Answer Sure has been successful. It’s not only available for people in New Jersey, but it’s picking up steam nationwide.

“Three weeks is when you start seeing a drop off in robocalls and spam calls. They (scammers) see that the person is not picking up the phone, their intended target, and they stop calling,” Padilla said.

In New Jersey, there are about 50 subscribers and Padilla said it continues to grow.

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