FCC To Phone Companies: Knock Off The Robocalls Or Else

July 12, 2019

The Federal Communications Commission is lauding the progress that phone carriers are making in the fight against unwanted robocalls, but also warning that if they fail to meet a deadline, the agency will move to impose new regulations.

This week the FCC held a summit on combating robocalls, a broadly acknowledged problem that has eroded trust in the phone system and put consumers -- particularly the elderly -- at risk of falling prey to scammers.

The FCC has alighted on a technical approach to fight the spoofed calls that often show up on your caller ID with your own area code and, often, the same first three numbers as your own phone number. Those calls, by spoofing your own number, aim to trick you into answering what appears to be a legitimate, local call, but in more likelihood originates from an overseas auto-dialing operation. The result, officials have lamented, is that we have become a “nation of call screeners.”