‘Ringing in your Fears’ report shows robocalls and scams still a big concern
US PIRG: Spam and robocalls increased 20 percent in a year
(InvestigateTV) — Millions of Americans receive robocalls at all hours every day, exposing them to scams and fraud.
“This is devastating, and the powers that be have not been able to figure out answers to protect us,” said Consumer Watchdog Teresa Murray with US PIRG.
Despite federal efforts to block them, Murray said the calls keep coming.
“The bad guys are always a step or two ahead of the rest of us,” she said. “You know, regulators haven’t done enough. Congress hasn’t done enough.”
Murray and the US PIRG team addressed robocalls in their new report ‘Ringing in our Fears.’
Their analysis found that out of more than 9,200 phone companies that filed with the FCC, 4,084 have completely installed the required robocall fighting software, while 1,696 have installed it only on part of their network.
Another 2,909 have not installed it at all. For 553 companies, their status was listed as “not available.”
USTelecom, which represents phone companies, disputes PIRG’s findings, saying the report misinterprets FCC compliance and that robocalls have been trending down. The group said carriers are adding security measures and working with law enforcement to stop illegal callers.
PIRG disagrees, arguing unwanted robocalls remain high and that short-term declines don’t reflect the year-over-year increase they found.
“They’ve been very slow to roll out any kind of like filters or any kind of blocking – they do, most of them do a minimal amount of protecting us,” Murray shared.
U.S. PIRG said earlier this year, the FCC adopted new rules expanding mandatory call-blocking by phone companies.
Previously, the rule applied only to U.S.-based intermediate providers handling foreign calls.
The new requirements take effect in December.
PIRG urges people who receive a scam call to report it to the BBB or FTC.
The FCC has a consumer guide on how to ‘Stop unwanted robocalls and texts.’
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