Law Against Robocalls Signed by President Trump

On Monday, an anti-robocalls measure was signed into law by President Donald Trump to reduce the high volume of calls promising to lower your interest rates or pretending to be the IRS.

The law gives more enforcement power to authorities to speed up measures that the industry is already taking to identify robocalls.  Phone companies will not be able to charge for blocking these calls.  This should help Americans avoid these frustrating phone calls.

“American families deserve control over their communications, and this legislation will update our laws and regulations to stiffen penalties, increase transparency, and enhance government collaboration to stop unwanted solicitation,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

The law is a “big victory,” said Consumer Reports’ Maureen Mahoney. “The key is requiring these phone companies to help stop the calls before they reach the consumer and do it at no additional charge.”

The robocalls have recently increased due to the fact that cheap software now makes mass calling easy.  Billions of robocalls reach Americans each month.  Hospital staff have been disrupted from important work due to fake calls thought to be coming from inside the hospital.  Millions of dollars have been defrauded from honest citizens causing them to avoid answering calls from an unknown number.

Under federal law, it’s already illegal to fake numbers on Caller ID to defraud or cause harm. Scams are also prohibited, as are automated telemarketing calls from legitimate companies that don’t already have written permission.

The trouble was enforcing it. Federal agencies have fined scammers hundreds of millions of dollars, but collections are not easy. Many of the callers are overseas. It’s hard to throw the fraudsters in jail.

The new law builds on steps taken by the country’s communications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, as well as state attorneys general and industry groups.