MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) is joining a coalition in calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen rules that would reduce robocallers’ access to legitimate telephone numbers. The Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force asked the FCC to work on this issue in 2021, and members of this coalition are now responding to the FCC’s proposed rules.
“Scammers shouldn’t be able to buy numerous real phone numbers that can be used to conduct their scams,” said AG Kaul. “The FCC should adopt these changes that can help with the fight against illegal robocalls.”
Last year, Americans received approximately 29.6 billion fraudulent robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion as a result. Robocallers used to primarily illegally “spoof” other people’s phone numbers to make it look like a call was coming from a legitimate company or government agency. But they can’t easily do this anymore after the federal government and state attorneys general took action to cut down on illegal spoofing. Now, they often purchase legitimate phone numbers and use them to make robocalls.
While most legitimate businesses use the same phone number for many years, robocallers cycle through millions of brand-new phone numbers, which helps them avoid detection by spam filters.
In addition to the steps the FCC is already taking, the coalition is asking the federal government to do more, including:
- Require every company that is authorized to purchase and then resell phone numbers in North America to meet stronger certification rules and share how and to whom they are assigning numbers.
- Require these companies to submit regular reports about the sale and use of numbers, so law enforcement can trace illegal robocalls back to the source. These reports will also help law enforcement hold all the companies in the call path accountable for selling or transmitting numbers used to conduct illegal robocalls.
- Require people and entities that are applying to access phone numbers to confirm that they won’t use them to make illegal robocalls.
- Block the sale of phone numbers to entities that aren’t tied to a calling or texting service. Robocallers often buy these numbers without linking them to a legitimate phone service, since they don’t plan on using the numbers for legitimate calling and texting purposes.
- Prohibit number cycling, which is when an entity buys lots of numbers and then uses them on a rotating, sometimes single-use basis to avoid being detected by tools that flag numbers used to make illegal robocalls.
- Restrict the offering of trial numbers to discourage scammers from taking advantage of them to harm consumers.
Wisconsin DOJ is joined in signing the letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
