Attorney General Donovan Joins Fight Against Illegal Robocalls

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Robocalls are annoying. But, when a scammer is on the other end of the call, they can also be dangerous. That’s why Attorney General Donovan with attorneys general from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., formed a public-private coalition with 12 phone companies to implement anti-robocall strategies to help protect consumers from illegal robocalls and make it easier for attorneys general to investigate and prosecute bad actors.  

The Anti-Robocall Principles address the robocall problem in two main ways: prevention and enforcement.

12 phone companies—AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Windstream—will work to prevent illegal robocalls by:

  • Implementing call-blocking technology at the network level at no cost to customers.
  • Making available to customers additional, free, easy-to-use call blocking and labeling tools.
  • Implementing technology to authenticate that callers are coming from a valid source.
  • Monitoring their networks for robocall traffic.

These phone companies will assist attorneys’ general anti-robocall enforcement by:

  • Knowing who their customers are so bad actors can be identified and investigated.
  • Investigating and taking action against suspicious callers – including notifying law enforcement   and state attorneys general.
  • Working with law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to trace the origins of illegal robocalls.
  • Requiring telephone companies with which they contract to cooperate in traceback identification.

Moving forward, phone companies will stay in close communication with the coalition of attorneys general to continue to optimize robocall protections as technology and scammer techniques change.

If you have received an illegal robocall, you can act by reporting it to the Consumer Assistance Program (CAP). CAP tracks scam trends occurring throughout Vermont, and provides timely alerts about rising scams. Call CAP toll free at (800) 649-2424.

Contributing Writer: Madison Braz

Content Editor: Crystal Baldwin