The Federal Communications Commission last week voted to approve a proposed rule that will extend prohibitions against robocalls that were passed last year in the Ray Baum’s Act to text messages and international calls. Previously, the anti-spoofing prohibitions in the Ray Baum’s Act only applied to domestic robocalls.
“Whether it’s neighborhood spoofing, which makes it look like an incoming call is from a local number, or spoofing the number of a company or government agency that consumers know and trust, scammers continue to hide behind spoofed numbers to deceive and defraud American consumers out of money and personal information,” Ajit Pai, the chairman of the FCC said in a statement.
The new rule gives the FCC more power and regulatory authority to go after scammers who operate internationally when sending spoofed text messages or making calls using spoofed caller ID phone numbers.
What will matter most to actually stopping internationally-originated robocalls is whether the proposed rules allow it to investigate and take action against the scammers, rather than just making the practice illegal without any enforcement authority.
The FCC has undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at combating the proliferation of robocalls. From a credit and collection industry perspective, the catch is to differentiate between illegal and unwanted robocalls and other automated calls, such as those from debt collectors, schools, or doctor’s offices, that are legitimate in nature.
Comments from commissioners on the FCC ranged from concern about overreaching to not going far enough in tackling the problem.
“There is no public process for holding carriers who put this junk on the line accountable,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “There needs to be one. I think it should start with the FCC naming and shaming the carriers responsible for letting these nuisance calls onto the network. In other words, we could use this traceback process to shine a light on the worst offenders.”
