A New Senate Bill Would Hit Robocallers With Up To a $10,000 Fine For Every Call (gizmodo.com)

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey and South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune have introduced a bill on Friday that aims to ramp up the penalties on illegal robocalls and stop scammers from sending them. Gizmodo reports: The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, raises the penalty for robocalls from $1,500 per call to up to $10,000 per call, and allows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take action on illegal robocalls up to three years after the calls are placed, instead of a year. The Act also aims to push the FCC to work along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and other agencies to provide information to Congress about advancements in hindering robocall and prosecuting scammers. Perhaps most importantly for us highly annoyed Americans, the bill would also force phone service providers to use call authentication that filters out illegitimate calls before they go through to consumers.

Comments

And nothing will change

[Balial]

... wake me up when they charge the telcos for every robocall they don't filter. That will make a change.

Re:And nothing will change

[Xenx]

A lot of telcos offer services to block specific callers and such. Blocking robocalls is doable, but requires a bit more finesse. The telcos don't want the liability when the filter blocks a call that the recipient really wanted to receive. Even if they weren't legally liable for it, they still don't want to fight with a paying customer when it happens. It's safer, from a business standpoint, to not filter.

spoofed calls from abroad

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

These calls originate from outside America and the number is spoofed.

If FBI sets up honey pots, take the bait, follow up, go up the chain and fine the people who hire these robo callers, then it might have some effect. Otherwise you can even call for death penalty, it wont have any effect.

I smell bullshit

[rsilvergun]

Robocalls work because they do thousands of them. If you caught one of the guys $1500 per call is already going to be millions, if not billions and maybe trillions.

Also, we know damn well how to stop Robocalls, you stop them at the source by making AT&T et al police their bloody network. They don't do this because they're making money off the robocalls.

So once again, I smell bullshit. More political theater to distract me and you from real issues like healthcare, wages and those 8 bloomin' wars we're fighting....

Give the fine

[Anonymous Coward]

to the telco. Financial incentive to the telco would fix it. As it is, the telco profits from the extra biz.