The Federal Communications Commission today voted to approve new rules that will allow phone carriers to block calls that come from phone numbers that can not or do not make outgoing calls, among other types of calls that will now be blocked.
The FCC has been looking to reduce the number of robocalls that consumers receive. The agency receives more than 200,000 complaints per year regarding robocalls.
“These calls are very likely to be illegal or fraudulent; there’s no legitimate reason for anyone to spoof caller ID to make it seem as if he or she is calling from an unassigned or invalid phone number,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement.
Along with calls coming from spoofed phone numbers, carriers are now allowed to block calls from area codes that do not exist or from numbers that have not been assigned to a provider. For example, scammers have used numbers belonging to the Internal Revenue Service that are not allowed to make outbound calls as a means of impersonating agents in search of unpaid tax debts.
The collections industry has been wary of these new rules because phone carriers may accidentally block legitimate calls from being made. Specifically, many collection agencies are dealing with the problem of having their phone number(s) reported to carriers as scammers or robocalls and subsequently having them blocked from being connected to individuals with unpaid debts. A solution for dealing with this problem has yet to be developed.
Phone carriers are not required to offer the services for free under the new rules. That was an issue for FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.
“While the agency offers carriers the ability to limit calls from what are likely to be fraudulent actors, it fails to prevent them from charging consumers for this service,” she said in a statement. “So this is the kicker: the FCC takes action to ostensibly reduce robocalls but then makes sure you can pay for the privilege. If you ask me, that’s ridiculous.”
