The FCC recently took action in an attempt to deter one-ring robocalls.

Under the ruling invoking a portion of the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act), carriers may block the one-ring calls.

Though most robocalls are annoying (some are appointment reminders for medical and other appointments), the ones that can be the most costly for consumers are one-ring robocalls. The scam is not designed for the consumer to answer the call, but instead to trick the consumer to call back, incurring overseas charges. The robocalls appear to come from the U.S., but they aren’t.

A variant of the scam involves leaving a call-back number for a package delivery, for information on a sick relative or another enticing reason for the consumer to call a particular number, which again appears to be in the U.S., but is a toll call.

“Today the FCC acts decisively to protect consumers from a particularly pernicious type of robocall: the one-ring scam,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, in a prepared statement. “In response to a spike in one-ring scam activity, we proactively targeted this problem over a year-and-a-half ago with a consumer advisory and have taken other action to combat this scam.  Today’s action is just the latest step to stop illegal calls before they reach consumers’ phones.  We are sending bad actors a clear message:  We will use all available tools, including those in the TRACED Act, to protect American consumers.”

The battle against robocalls is picking up steam with new FCC robocall action.

Sprint and Frontier recently took steps to thwart the annoying robocalls; now the Federal Communications Commission wants carriers to go further.

The FCC wants carriers that allow international robocalls into U.S. networks to fully participate in efforts to trace back those calls.  Rosemary Harold, the FCC enforcement bureau chief sent letters to seven gateway service providers — All Access, Globex, Piratel, Talkie, Telcast, ThinQ, and Third Base — asking for their support in tracking down the originators of illegal spoofed foreign robocalls. 

FCC Robocall Action

The seven companies are U.S.-based voice providers that accept foreign call traffic and terminate it to U.S. consumers.  These companies are used as gateways into the United States for robocalls that originate overseas.  As the point of entry for this traffic into the U.S. telephone network, these companies are uniquely situated to assist government and industry efforts to combat scam robocalls, the FCC said. 

The letters announced today are the latest example of the government’s efforts to combat illegal robocalls.

Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced actions to stop service providers that facilitated hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls to American consumers. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it sent letters to 19 VoIP providers warning that facilitating illegal telemarketing robocalling is against the law.

In a related action, last week FCC Chairman Ajit Pai circulated to his colleagues for their consideration proposed new rules that would establish a registration process for selecting a consortium to conduct private-led efforts to trace back the origin of suspected unlawful robocalls.  If adopted, the proposal would implement the recently enacted Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act).  Industry participation in call traceback efforts has proved useful in the Commission’s enforcement efforts to combat illegal robocalling and spoofing, according to a press release.