July 5th, 2017 by WCBC Radio

In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday, Attorney General Frosh and a bi-partisan group of 29 attorneys general are urging the federal government to adopt rules that would allow telephone providers to block illegal robocalls. 

 

The FCC has requested public comment on rules that would allow providers to block several types of “spoofed” calls, in which a call appears to be coming from one number, but is actually coming from a different number. Scammers frequently use spoofed calls to hide their identity and to trick consumers into believing that their calls are legitimate.

 

“We urge the FCC to crackdown on these robocalls.  They are most often scammers trying to take hard-earned money from unsuspecting consumers,” said Attorney General Frosh. “While robocalls will never completely disappear – having the FCC take action can prevent potential harm to millions of consumers. Consumers should always be wary of answering calls from numbers they do not recognize and should never give out personal information.”

 

Currently, regulatory roadblocks prevent telecommunications companies from blocking many illegal robocalls.  If the new rules are adopted, providers would be allowed to block calls coming from invalid numbers, unallocated numbers, and numbers whose owners have requested be blocked.  For example, phone providers would be able to block a scammer that is using a telephone number that clearly can’t exist because it hasn’t been assigned.