Scam Robocalls: Telecom Providers Profit

Executive Summary

Every month, more than one billion scam robocalls designed to steal money from unsuspecting telephone subscribers are made possible because providers—typically small, pop-up VoIP telephone providers—transmit these calls through to our telephones. Every answered scam robocall pays money to those providers, as well as to every telephone service provider in the call path.

Even when these providers are told—sometimes repeatedly—that they are transmitting fraudulent calls, they keep doing it, because they are making money from these calls. And even when they are caught and told to stop, they are not criminally prosecuted, and the fines that are levied are rarely collected. FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks has noted this counterproductive dynamic regarding robocalls: “[I]llegal robocalls will continue so long as those initiating and facilitating them can get away with and profit from it.”

This report, co-authored by EPIC and National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), explains the depth of the problem, the reasons for the problem, and how the Federal Communications Commission has responded. We recommend several simple strategies that would stop most, if not all, of these fraudulent robocalls.