HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday co-led a bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General who are pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen its “Know Your Customer” obligations to help prevent scammers from using the U.S. communications network to make illegal robocalls.
The “Know your Customer” obligations require phone companies to know who is using their networks to make calls. Phone companies can choose to suspend or terminate callers who are using their networks illegally.
This is the latest action by Attorney General Sunday and the Office of Attorney General to shield Pennsylvanians from harmful communications. Working with the Legislature, the Office of Attorney General worked to update Pennsylvania’s outdated telemarketing laws which resulted in the passage of SB992 that put new restrictions in place for telemarketing and robocalls, prohibited the spoofing of numbers and included texting and voicemails into the definitions of telemarketing.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Sunday urged the FCC to cut robocallers’ access to legitimate phone numbers. Previously, and as part of the related and ongoing “Operation Robocall Roundup,” Attorney General Sunday and a national coalition sent warning letters to major phone service providers to stop allowing illegal robocalls to reach consumers.
“Robocalls aren’t just a nuisance — they are often illegal or used to perpetuate a scam, and this effort seeks to add another layer of protection for Pennsylvanians,” Attorney General Sunday said. “With an estimated one billion robocalls directed to Pennsylvanians’ phones last year, this is a major problem that communications companies must address.”
Illegal robocalls start with an originating voice service provider allowing bad actors to use their network. If scammers can’t get their calls onto the U.S. communications network, they can’t make illegal robocalls. So, these originating voice service providers are key to stopping these calls from reaching people.
The current requirements aren’t strong enough – as evidenced by the prevalence of robocall scams. Last year, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams.
In addition to what the FCC is already doing, attorneys general urge the FCC to:
- Require providers to understand their customers’ business. In addition to verifying a customer’s identity and existence, originating providers should also be required to examine and understand the customer’s business practices, reputation, history, intended use of services, and their compliance with state and federal laws.
- Hold all originating providers to KYC standards. Even small originating service providers should be required to meet enhanced KYC standards. Scammers use originating providers, regardless of size, to access the communications network. In fact, illegal calls are often facilitated by smaller voice service providers. Not holding small providers to the same standards could cause them to be even more attractive to bad actors looking to use them to make illegal robocalls.
- Require originating providers to collect additional information on high-risk customers. While KYC requirements should be universal, the attorneys general support additional, long-term monitoring of customers who are more likely to make illegal robocalls, such as those subscribing to high volume services.
This letter comes after a coalition of Attorneys General sent reply comments to the FCC earlier in July, encouraging it to crackdown on illegal robocalls by strengthening rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate phone numbers.
Attorney General Sunday co-led sending the letter and was joined by the Attorneys General of 49 states and territories.
