From staff reports

HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday has joined a bipartisan coalition of 49 other state attorneys general in urging the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen rules aimed at preventing scammers from using legitimate telephone numbers to carry out robocall schemes.

The coalition is asking the FCC to adopt additional safeguards that would make it more difficult for scammers to obtain and rotate legitimate phone numbers, a tactic increasingly used to bypass spam filters and make fraudulent calls appear trustworthy.

“Robocalls are more than just a nuisance — they are often a means to perpetrate a scam, and when they involve legitimate phone number ‘spoofs,’ they are more effective in achieving their mission of duping Pennsylvanians,” Sunday said. “We are asking the feds to cut off scammers’ access to real phone numbers, which they often buy in droves.”

According to the attorney general’s office, Americans received nearly 30 billion scam robocalls and text messages last year.

Sunday serves on the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which has worked with the FCC since 2021 to combat illegal robocalls. Pennsylvania is co-leading the latest effort with attorneys general from Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio.

Among the recommendations, the coalition is asking the FCC to require stronger certification standards for companies that buy and resell telephone numbers, improve reporting requirements to help law enforcement trace illegal calls, prohibit the practice of “number cycling,” and block the sale of phone numbers to entities not connected to legitimate calling or texting services.

The coalition also wants applicants seeking access to phone numbers to certify they will not use them to make illegal robocalls and is urging restrictions on free trial phone numbers that scammers often exploit.

The request is part of the ongoing “Operation Robocall Roundup,” a nationwide initiative in which attorneys general have worked with federal regulators and telecommunications companies to reduce illegal robocalls reaching consumers.