Why this is an effective spoofing strategy is unclear. Is it the hope that targets will think, “Hmm. I’m calling me. What do I want?” Maybe the masterminds of this legerdemain figure that people will answer the phone out of curiosity. Perhaps it is just a technique to evade call blocking systems, on the theory that the one number you probably never thought to block was your own.

Whatever the answer, it’s clear that autodialed calls remain a scourge. Two weeks ago, the Haggler’s home phone and cellphone were called within seconds of each other. The Haggler briefly wondered if there was a way to place one phone on the other and get these con artists to fleece each other.

In fact, the Haggler has surrendered in his personal fight against robocalling. For a few months last year, he dutifully entered the phone numbers of robocallers into number-blocking software at home.

After about 25 numbers were cataloged, the Haggler gave up. The pace of calls never eased. These callers have an apparently limitless supply of numbers at their disposal, including yours. Blocking these numbers one at a time is pointless.

The distressing reality is that these unwanted calls are a nuisance of American life that isn’t going away. The best that can be done is to educate consumers in the hopes that the business dries up and is no longer lucrative.

So this time we depart from our usual letter-and-intervention model for a public service announcement. Specifically, about the I.R.S. phone swindle. Since October 2013, about 900,000 people have reported getting a call from an I.R.S. phone swindler, and not all of these people hung up unscathed, the Treasury Department reported in January. Officials estimated that 5,000 victims had parted with a total of more than $26 million.

The I.R.S. has been trying to get the word out about this fraud with a web page listing common tricks (https://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Urges-Public-to-Stay-Alert-for-Scam-Phone-Calls).