BROWSING: robocalls

Robocalls are the number one complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), comprising roughly 60% of all complaints to the organization.  In the past three years alone, the number of robocalls has doubled to an estimated more than 50 billion calls per year in...

  As if hospitals around the U.S. don't have enough to worry about in the midst of a pandemic, their everyday cybersecurity concerns, including their vulnerability to being targeted by robocallers or having their official phone numbers spoofed by scammers trying to defraud consumers, haven't...

  Have diabetes and want to order an at-home coronavirus testing kit? Want to know more about the federal relief programs like student loan interest suspensions? Need your government relief check now? Robocall scammers are already preying on Americans with scams that leverage the fear...

Mandate comes as part of implementing the TRACED Act Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed mandatory implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication framework to fight unwanted robocalls, in line with recently passed federal legislation. If adopted, the mandate would require voice service providers to...

More than 300 million unwanted robocalls are sent to Americans each day Despite ongoing efforts by industry and regulators to stem the flood of unwanted robocalls, a Transaction Network Services report has found that the number of such robocalls jumped by 49% from 2018 to...

  Over the past several months, we’ve seen the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act, a bill to deter criminal robocall violations and make it easier for authorities to assign financial penalties, signed into law; the FCC strengthen efforts to fine robocallers and drive implementation of the SHAKEN/STIR...

Continuing the fight against unwanted robocalls, carriers T-Mobile US and Sprint say they have implemented STIR/SHAKEN number verification across their networks. The two companies called the effort "an important step in the industry’s ongoing fight against unwanted scam and spam calls." STIR/SHAKEN, or Secure Telephone...

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $12.9 million fine for a robocall operator whose spoofed calls allegedly included conspiracy theories, attempts to influence a jury and racist and anti-Semitic elements. The FCC accused Scott Rhodes (also known as Scott Platek) of sending thousands of...

While 2019 was the year the telecom industry and regulators increased their actions to address illegal robocalls with default call blocking and the launch of STIR/SHAKEN, 2020 will be the year that we see how these strategies unfold. By January 2020, the new FCC-endorsed ATIS-SIP Forum SHAKEN framework will...

As a bipartisan bill to combat robocalls head to President Donald Trump's desk, the Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission continue to pursue broader deployment of a standards-based call authentication framework designed to help better identify -- and hopefully, reduce...

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, and across party lines, in favor of a bill that attempts to crack down on unwanted and fraudulent robocalls. The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act requires carriers to offer call authentication, as well as opt-in or opt-out robocall blocking, at...

Only about 40% of mobile phone users want their carriers to automatically block all calls from numbers not in their contacts list -- but that number nearly doubles for calls highly suspected to be spam, according to a new survey from Transaction Network Services. TNS...

One of the first steps to combat unwanted spam robocalls is to authenticate the call and alert customers that an incoming call is -- or isn't -- actually coming from the number that comes up on Caller ID, or whether it is spoofed to...

As carriers move to implement a new framework to provide more information to end users on incoming calls, they are learning more about both how to deploy the STIR/SHAKEN framework as well as how to work with other operators to ensure cross-network traffic functions...

At an FCC summit on robocalls, major service providers discussed their progress on testing and implementation of the SHAKEN/STIR specifications aimed at combatting robocalls and illegal call spoofing. The STIR/SHAKEN specifications aim to authenticate and verify the identity of the party that is calling, including...

Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, and spammy, scammy robocalls are universally despised. "If there is one thing in our country right now that unites Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, socialists and libertarians, vegetarians and carnivores, Ohio State and Michigan fans, it...

Robocalling, spamming, scamming, and spoofing are scenarios that play out for consumers multiple times a week - if not every day. The FTC received 3.7 million complaints for FY 2018, surprisingly down from 4.5 million complaints in FY 2017, but still the number one consumer complaint.  The...

The Federal Trade Commission has won court settlements that will shut down four robocalling operations that were responsible for billions of illegal robocalls, the agency said. Under court orders issued this week, the companies and individuals are banned from both robocalling and most telemarketing...

The Federal Communications Commission this week gave carriers its blessing to continue their efforts to block unwanted text messages, but opponents of the action expressed concerns that the move will allow censorship or alteration of messages. The FCC ruling declared that both text and multimedia...

  For anyone who owns a smartphone, it will come as little surprise that robocalling activity is up 15% year to date. The jump follows an increase in robocall complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 3.4 million robocalls in 2016 to 4.5 million...

Call spoofing earned one company an $82 million fine Earlier this month the U.S. Federal Communications Commission levied a massive fine against a company for making more than 20 million robocalls from obscured numbers. But fines for call spoofing aren't enough, according to 35 state...

FCC fines one telemarketer for spoofing calls and proposes fines for another The Federal Communications Commission has fined one telemarketer more than $82 million -- one of its largest-ever fines -- and proposed another $37.5 million in fines for another, both related to call spoofing. In...

First Orion projects that at current rate, nearly 45% of mobile calls will be scams by next year The rate of scam calls to U.S. mobile users is increasing so rapidly that by next year, nearly half of all calls will be fraudulent, according to...

Study tested carrier services for identifying and blocking spam calls A study by analyst firm Mind Commerce found that services offered by wireless network operators are "generally effective" at identifying and blocking unwanted robocalls, with Verizon's service ranked as the best. “While there is much work...