Utah attorney general joins other states in attack on 'robocall ecosystem'

SALT LAKE CITY — Nine phone service providers received threats of shutdown from a task force of state attorneys general, including Utah Attorney General Derek Brown, on Wednesday, for what the group terms the "robocall ecosystem" across the country.

The Federal Communication Commission says its "top consumer complaint" is unwanted calls, numbering in the tens of thousands monthly.

But artificial intelligence has pushed the limits on the robocalls that many experience. Known phone numbers are "spoofed," voices of public figures including presidential candidates were imitated with "deepfake" technology, vulnerable people are scammed, and emergency medical communications and 911 call centers can be disrupted, according to a 2021 FCC report.

During the pandemic, for example, "robocall scammers were capitalizing on public anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic by making robocalls to sell nonexistent COVID-19 testing kits," the report says.

The issue is evolving, but the fraud protection company Hiya, which releases quarterly Global Call Threat reports, says that in the first half of 2024, U.S. consumers received an above-average number of unwanted calls, estimated at 14 per month, but "its rate of fraud (1%) is one of the lowest in the world. Most fraud calls are blocked before they reach consumers."

Medicare and insurance fraud calls were the most popular, the Hiya report says, while nuisance calls, including political and robocalls, made up 30% of unwanted calls.

In 2017, the commission reversed its stance on call blocking without consumer consent, allowing voice service providers to block certain calls "purporting to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers and numbers on a Do-Not-Originate list," the report says. A Robocall Mitigation Database was started in 2021, and other methods and requirements have been implemented to curb the onslaught of calls. Those rules continue to be revised as the landscape evolves.

In 2022, 51 attorneys general, led by North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, created the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force to take legal action against companies that are part of what they call the "robocalls ecosystem" in the country.

They began sending notices to service providers in November 2023. Eight providers were put on notice that month. Nine letters were sent on Wednesday by the group. In total, 16 providers have been sent letters, many of them on Wednesday were "second and final notice" letters threatening legal action.

One notice, for example to thinQ Industries Inc., alleged recurrent high-volume illegal and/or suspicious robocalling campaigns concerning government imposters and impersonations, debt relief/financing, utilities, loan approvals, Amazon suspicious charges, student loan forgiveness, DirecTV discounts, sweepstakes, and more.

If problems persist, there are avenues through the FCC rules to remove these providers from the Robocall Mitigation Database, which "would require all intermediate providers and terminating voice service providers to cease accepting (the company's) call traffic," one letter says.

Here are some tips from the Utah Attorney General's Office to avoid phone scams:

• If you do not know a number, do not answer the phone.
• Do not give personal information to unexpected calls. Verify the authenticity of the caller before giving any information.
• If you do accidentally answer a call from an unknown number, hang up. Do not answer questions with "yes."
• If you receive a call from someone who says they are from a bank or company, you can hang up the call and then call the number found on the company's website.
• If you are expecting a call where you may have to exchange personal information over the phone, ask the person ahead of time what number they will be calling from.
• You can report unwanted calls to the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC.

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