Technology

Feds Take Victory Lap After Booting Single Robocall Carrier

GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA/FCC Headquarters/Wikimedia Foundation

The federal government is cutting one robocall carrier off U.S. phone networks — but Americans still receive billions of the calls each month.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered U.S. phone networks to block all calls from Digital Solutions, Inc., the agency announced in a Monday press release. The carrier moved illegal prerecorded calls pitching fraudulent loans and tax relief, according to the agency, but the order stops just one company among the many routing billions of robocalls into U.S. networks.

“The FCC is aggressively intensifying its crackdown on illegal robocalls by deploying new, advanced tactics across the telecom landscape, and attacking the problem at every point along the call path,” Hunter Deeley, the FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief said, according to the press release. “Today’s enforcement action shuts down another rogue provider that has consistently failed to play by the rules to police its network and protect consumers.”

The order requires U.S. voice providers and intermediate carriers to block all Digital Solutions traffic within 30 days, the press release states. The company was also removed from the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD), a list of carriers that certified they use caller ID authentication and made plans to cut down on robocalls.

The Industry Traceback Group traced suspected illegal calls to Digital Solutions earlier this year, the order said. The robocalls were prerecorded and offered loan and tax-relief to individuals that did not consent to receiving them.

Digital Solutions told investigators the calls started on its network, and pointed to three specific customers as the people behind them, Monday’s press release stated.

The Enforcement Bureau notified Digital Solutions on April 2 and ordered it on June 29 to explain the calls, but the company never followed up, according to the order.

Americans received roughly 3.9 billion robocalls in August, YouMail reported. Americans got a total of 48.5 billion in the past year, fewer than in any 12-month stretch since August 2022.

“It’s a bit of large scale whack-a-mole,” YouMail CEO Alex Quilici told the Daily Caller News Foundation in August. “And the enforcers have the disadvantage of having to follow the law when they investigate, while the robocallers tend to be able to move quickly and don’t care about the law.”

Fighting illegal robocalls is the commission’s “top consumer protection priority,” according to a July statement from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

The FCC did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The federal agency can fine robocallers, but only the Justice Department can hold them accountable in court, a Congressional Research Service report said. Of nine cases the FCC sent to the department between Jan. 2018 and Nov. 2023, the department pursued two.