Senate passes new limits on robocalls, sending legislation to Trump

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

Congress on Thursday approved the country’s first major anti-robocall law in decades, hoping that a mix of new federal powers and regulations targeting the telecom industry will spell relief from spam calls that rang consumers a record 54 billion times this year.The vote in the Senate, weeks after the House passed the legislation, sends the bill to President Trump, who is expected to sign it.

The measure won’t cut down on robocalls immediately, its backers acknowledge, but over time should lessen the unwanted interruptions — and take aim at the fraudsters behind them.Under the proposal, dubbed the TRACED Act, the government will gain new powers to find and prosecute criminals who place batches of calls under fake numbers without obtaining permission, remedying what law enforcement officials have said was a major weakness that inhibited their ability to punish those who contact Americans en masse.

The bill also puts in motion a process requiring AT&T, Verizon and other telecom carriers — small and large, wireless and those that service landlines — to adopt technology that’s supposed to help companies and consumers identify when calls are legitimate or spam. Carriers that implement this technology to block suspected, fraudulent robocalls also must offer people those services for free.

Many provisions in the legislation will take months to implement, and even supporters say it isn’t perfect, leaving a number of robocall issues unresolved. Nothing, for example, cuts down on credit card companies, student lenders and others that call Americans in droves. Still, lawmakers and consumer advocates hailed it as a critical first step after robocallers rang Americans’ smartphones an estimated 54 billion times over the past 11 months, according to YouMail, a call-blocking app that found 60 percent of such calls are fraudulent.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/19/robocalls-rang-consumers-billion-times-congress-just-adopted-new-law-fight-back/

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Another baby step but finally got this ball moving again. I use a digitone blocker to halt the repeat robocallers that use the same "number" (number in quotes because those numbers are often spoofed) as well as all the other crap "anonymous/out of area" calls.

[keithbvadu2]

1. Do 'the google' on unknown numbers. You'll sometimes find what scam they are.

Do 'the google' on unknown numbers. You'll sometimes find what scam they are.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I always do that with every call coming in that is unknown

and many of them show up on that 800Notes site... and that's when I immediately have my blocker save that in its block list.

[coolcat_riley]

10. That's right

Yeah, this is the easiest way for us to identify those unknown calls. Sometimes I also find that the callers were coming from legitimate businesses, which is even more annoying. Maybe suing them like what I read at https://www.whycall.me/news/consumer-wins-massive-229500-robocall-lawsuit-against-time-warner-cable/ is a good idea.

[Raven123]

3. Amazing that this issue has taken so long to address, even minimally

I’m pretty sure measures reducing/eliminating robocalls polls well everywhere.

[IronLionZion]

4. Hope this tackles caller ID spoofing

that's a major part of the problem. I know any number from my cell phone's area code that isn't in my contacts is scam/spam or they can leave a voicemail. I haven't lived in that area code in 18 years so I know not to answer. It's almost always spoofed except for an occasional wrong number.

Verizon offers their call filter app for free now and it's quite effective. Hiya also works well if you manually update it each day. There are several pay options available too.

The iPhone now has options to block all unknown numbers and/or all international numbers. This is too heavy handed for me but is a free option for those who want it.

[PSPS]

5. The FCC approved the shake/stir method of stopping spoofing but I haven't seen it implemented.

[IronLionZion]

8. They didn't put a deadline because of the wide differences in technology

so it's probably being done by regional local networks. Older infrastructure won't be as quick to adopt shake/stir until they get some hardware upgrades.

[PSPS]

6. Meaningless by itself. These usualy originate offshore and, thus, out of reach

In addition, the FCC already approved a method of stopping CID spoofing but none of the telcos is implementing it.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. They still get carried over the main U.S. trunk lines where tbere is all sorts of equipment

that it passes through that can be filtered. They have the tech as you note. But it's that big telecomm didn't want to lose the $$$$ from those traditional robocallers leasing POTS lines, although those are becoming few and far between with VoIP and robo software now ubiquitous. But I think this bill will force them to implement what they have, but without requiring an extra customer charge that is currently what they are doing to turn the filters on for those who pay for the privilege (although they will ultimately find a means to charge anyway and give the charge some nonsensical name to mask the purpose).

I have noticed the past couple years that my local Verizon office has something implemented that will tag certain numbers with the text word "SPAM?" alongside the CID info on the display for my land line.

[LuckyLib]

9. I'd like to see legislation curtailing robo tweeting. Our fearless

(well, not so much now) leader needs to be shut down!