Shapiro leads coalition to urge FCC to take action on illegal robocalls

Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently led a bipartisan coalition of 34 attorneys generals in calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish rules that allow telephone service providers to block more illegal robocalls.

The coalition filed a formal comment to the FCC, which explains that scammers have found ways to get around a call blocking order entered by the FCC last year following action by Attorney General Shapiro and colleague attorneys generals.

“I’m taking new action with my colleagues to continue the fight to protect Pennsylvanians and Americans from these bothersome and illegal robocall scams, which are used to scam seniors and other vulnerable populations,” Shapiro said. “As Attorney General, I take seriously my role to protect consumers from scams of all kinds. The FCC should create new rules to let telephone service providers block more types of illegal robocalls.”

One tactic that is on the rise is “neighbor spoofing,” which can cause any call to appear on a consumer’s caller ID as if it were being made from a phone number that has the same local area code as the consumer, making the consumer more likely to answer the call.

In their formal comment, Shapiro and his colleagues expressed support for an initiative that would give phone service providers the authority to use new technology to detect and block illegal spoofed calls. Service providers would be ready to launch this new authentication method in 2019.