(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong joined a bipartisan coalition of 49 other attorneys general in urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen its “Know Your Customer” (KYC) rules to help prevent scammers from using the U.S. communications network to make illegal robocalls.
KYC rules require phone companies to know who is making calls through their networks and what kinds of business those customers are conducting. With that information, phone companies can suspend or terminate callers who use their networks to make unlawful calls or decline to do business with customers that are not legitimate companies or cannot prove they conduct lawful business.
“The current safeguards against illegal robocalls are not strong enough. Bad actors continue to exploit gaps in the system and scam families out of money. The FCC needs to strengthen its Know Your Customer rules to ensure phone companies keep scammers off their networks and better protect the public,” said Attorney General Tong.
Illegal robocalls begin when an originating voice service provider allows bad actors to use its network. Attorney General Tong has previously urged the FCC to strengthen its KYC rules, arguing that stronger safeguards would help prevent scammers from gaining access to the nation’s communications network.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and text messages last year and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams.
The coalition is urging the FCC to require providers to better understand their customers’ businesses, apply enhanced KYC standards to all originating providers regardless of size, and require additional monitoring of high-risk customers, such as those using high-volume calling services.
The letter follows comments submitted earlier this month as part of Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, a nationwide effort by the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force to reduce illegal robocalls by strengthening enforcement against companies that enable scam calls.