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.”