Mahwah Police Warn Of Increase In Robocalls, Scams

MAHWAH, NJ — Police issued a warning about an increasing trend of "robocalls" plaguing residents recently.

Chief James Batelli said there has been a "dramatic" increase of complaints regarding such calls in town. There is a new trend of "hang up" calls that residents are receiving late at night, he said.

A trend coming along with these calls is "caller ID spoofing," a trick that allows a caller to control the caller ID of someone's phone. Locally, these calls look like they are coming from Mahwah or a local businesses' name is displayed, Batelli said. These hang up calls are sometimes a scam by someone in another country that lead to international charges going on someone's phone bill, but there have been no reported instances of this in Mahwah, he said.

"The technology that telemarketers use has not only come down in price in recent years, but also has increased capabilities that disguise the actual source of the call," Batelli said.

Residents who receive any of these kinds of calls can file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission at fcc.gov.

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