If you didn’t know the Federal Communications Commission had a Robocall Response Team, you’re hardly alone. The daily barrage of scam calls to anyone with a phone has not abated in years, despite weak efforts such as a Do Not Call registry that simply acted as a directory for grifters.
Violating the Do Not Call registry can potentially result in a fine of up to $43,792 per call, but the scammers simply developed techniques to hide their real originating phone numbers.
Additionally, the list of allowable reasons to ignore the Do Not Call list seems as big as a phone book. Scammers can still legally call under the guise of a political, charitable, survey or informational call.
Everyone is fed up
Virtually everyone with a telephone, whether land line or cellular, has received scam calls. Most people receive them weekly or even daily.
“I get an unbelievable amount of calls,” Johnny Garcia of Texas told TheDetroitBureau.com. “At least one every week, sometimes for cars I haven’t owned for years or for my current vehicle, which is under warranty.”
Garcia has plenty of company — even in another country.
“My general approach to phone spammers is to not answer numbers I don’t recognize,” said Brian Scearce of Ontario, Canada. “Legitimate callers will leave a message.”
Many people have stopped answering all phone calls from unknown numbers; enough that newer phones have a software feature to silence all calls from numbers not found in the user’s contacts list. When calls do get through, most people simply hang up when the nature of the call is revealed. A few employ low-tech countermeasures, however.
“Depending upon my mood I’ll play until I get a person on the phone, and then it’s airhorn time, baby!” said Tim McKenzie of Oregon.
New efforts to curtail calls
If you’re wondering what this has to do with the automotive industry, one of the most ubiquitous schemes in the robocalling underworld is the automobile warranty con. Automobile warranty scam robocalls resulted in more consumer complaints to the FCC than any other unwanted call category in each of the last two years.
These calls usually claim your insurance or warranty is about to expire and they frequently use consumers’ real information in order to appear legitimate. These calls may be seeking consumers’ personal or financial information in order to defraud them, hoping to collect credit card numbers and other identifying information, or just garnering information about active phones.
To combat this, the FCC announced the agency’s Enforcement Bureau ordered phone companies to stop carrying traffic regarding a known robocall scam to market extended auto warranties. The calls are coming from Roy Cox Jr., Aaron Michael Jones, their Sumco Panama companies, and international associates.
In early July, the FCC Enforcement Bureau sent cease-and-desist letters to eight voice service providers carrying this traffic directing them to block the calls. The eight service providers have not responded to the letters, so the FCC is directing all other carriers to refuse to carry this traffic.
In addition, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the Enforcement Bureau had opened a formal case and is actively investigating these calls for possible legal violations. This operation is also the target of an ongoing investigation by the Ohio Attorney General.
“We are not going to tolerate robocall scammers or those that help make their scams possible. Consumers are out of patience and I’m right there with them,” said Rosenworcel.
So what does that mean?
This order means that phone companies must try to stop all calls associated with these scams. If they do not, they must regularly report the steps they have taken to mitigate the traffic.
“Now that U.S. voice service providers know the individuals and entities associated with this scheme, the Enforcement Bureau will closely monitor voice service providers’ compliance with this order and take appropriate enforcement action as necessary,” said Acting FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal.
So, the phone companies are ordered to try to stop the calls. That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed, however.
Who’s making these calls?
The Cox/Jones/Sumco Panama operation appears to be responsible for making more than 8 billion unlawful prerecorded message calls to American consumers since at least 2018.
The robocalls include prerecorded marketing messages which encouraged consumers to follow prompts to speak with a “warranty specialist” about extending or reinstating their car warranty. Callers who speak with the scammers are pressured to give up their credit card and identifying information.
What’s being done?
The FCC has created the Robocall Response Team to pull together expertise from across the agency to leverage the talents of enforcers, attorneys, policy makers, engineers, economists, and outreach experts to combat illegal number-spoofing scam robocalls.
This effort has resulted in record-breaking spoofing and robocall fines, closing gateways used by international robocallers to reach American phones, widespread implementation of STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication standards to help trace back illegal calls, and improved blocking tools to protect consumers.
In all, 41 states plus the District of Columbia and Guam helped in the effort. The FCC is also working on new policy proposals to combat the rising threat of bogus robotexts.
What is STIR/SHAKEN?
Number spoofing is the technique used by scammers to make it appear as though a phone call is coming from the recipient’s area code, to make it more likely that they will answer. One of the most effective ways to combat number-spoofing is called STIR/SHAKEN technology. STIR/SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards.
These protocols help ensure that calls traveling through interconnected phone networks would have their caller ID “signed” as legitimate by originating carrier and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers. STIR/SHAKEN digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is in fact from the number displayed on Caller ID.
How to protect yourself today
The FCC recommends a few common sense practices to greatly reduce your chances of becoming a victim of phone scams:
- Don’t Share — Do not provide any personal information to anyone that calls you unexpectedly.
- Be Aware — Telephone scammers are good at what they do and may use real information to gain your trust and imply that they work for a company you trust.
- Don’t Trust Caller ID — Criminals might use “spoofing” to deliberately falsify the information transmitted.
- Double Check — If you think it might be a legitimate call, hang up and call the company back using a phone number from a previous bill or the company website.
- Report Scams — File a complaint with the FCC: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/.