FCC Debuts New Robocall Rules

Commission targets bad-faith phone numbers

Endless Spoof

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) was hearing about it – 200,000 times a year.

That is the rate of consumer complaints to the FCC about unwanted calls, including robocalls – calls made from automated phone banks. But if you think this complaint rate is astounding, it pales in comparison with the cause: The Commission cites studies that claim consumers receive about 2.4 billion unwanted calls every month. And as every year goes by, robocallers become more technologically sophisticated – more skilled at hiding their identity and appearing to be legitimate callers.

The FCC cites, for example, scam callers that use non-outbound numbers at the IRS to dial potential victims. The victims unfortunately believe the calls are legitimate, based on their caller ID.