In a response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) included in the November 17, 2017 Report and Order on Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls, CFA and other public interest groups acknowledge that, while the FCC’s rulemaking is a positive step, much more needs to be done to effectively deal with deceptively spoofed calls. These include the growing problem of neighbor spoofing—in which fraudulent callers spoof the consumer’s own area code—or other spoofing of phone numbers already in use. Nor does the rulemaking address unspoofed, but other illegal or unwanted robocalls, such as telemarketing or debt collection robocalls made in violation of the law. Above all, consumers deserve access to effective call-blocking tools, and their preferences, rather than the callers’, should remain paramount.
