State AGs urge the FCC to crack down on illegal robocalls
Forty-nine state attorneys general signed reply comments and a letter urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to crack down on illegal robocalls. Many of the AGs also issued news releases in their states to raise awareness and support for this initiative. Let’s have a look.
We found press releases on 63 news outlets from 23 state attorneys general (AGs) spreading the word about their call to action. These AGs are members of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force. Forty-nine AGs signed the NAAG’s reply comments filing with the FCC, including AGs from American Samoa and the District of Columbia. Who didn’t sign, you ask? We didn’t find signatures from the AGs of Florida, Montana, and Texas.
The problem: numbering policies and availability
Scammers purchase large quantities of legitimate phone numbers and cycle through them, often making just a few illegal calls on each number before continuing with another number. In one example cited by the AGs, scammers made more than 17.3 million calls on a single day through a single phone company, and they generally did not use the same number more than twice. This tactic helps the scammers avoid detection by call analytics.
Proposed rules
The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on numbering policies in which they proposed rules to extend robocall certification requirements to all service providers and resellers of telephone numbers. These rules would include the following:
- All providers and resellers would be required to file a certification in the Robocall Mitigation Database.
- Expand reporting requirements of number resource utilization.
- Limit resale of numbering resources to a single level.
The NPRM also asked for comments on several related issues.
The AGs asked the FCC to do more
In their reply comments and NAAG press release, the state AGs asked the FCC to do more, including the following:
- Stronger certification and reporting requirements for every voice service provider and reseller.
- Regular reports on sales and use of numbers.
- Require those applying for phone service to confirm they won’t use them to make illegal robocalls.
- Block the sale of numbers to entities not tied to a legitimate service.
- Prohibit number cycling.
- Restrict the offering of trial numbers.
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