Pennsylvania Cracking Down On Robocalls, AG Says

PENNSYLVANIA — Pennsylvania has reached an agreement with 12 major phone companies to fight illegal robocalls, Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced.

The Keystone State is among a coalition of attorneys general who reached an agreement with AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Windstream to adopt eight principles targeted at improving prevention and enforcement of illegal robocalls.

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“Robocall scams are not simply an annoyance—they are illegal, and they are used to take advantage of our seniors and other vulnerable populations,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “I’ve heard the people of Pennsylvania loud and clear that they want action. I’m proud to stand with my colleague attorneys general and 11 major telecom companies today in announcing this ringing success in the fight against illegal robocalls. I look forward to continuing to work together to combat this issue and deliver results for Pennsylvania consumers.”

According to the Attorney General, as part of the agreement, the phone companies will work to prevent illegal robocalls by:

• Offering some form of call blocking services for all types of telephone customers, at no cost to the customer;
• Offering free, easy-to-use labeling tools for smartphone mobile and voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) residential customers;
• Implementing technology to authenticate that callers are coming from a valid source;
• Monitoring their networks for robocall traffic.

Phone companies will assist attorneys general with anti-robocall enforcement by:

• Knowing who their commercial customers are so bad actors using the phone company’s network can be identified and investigated;
• Investigating and taking action against suspicious callers – including notifying law enforcement and state attorneys general;
• Working with law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to trace the origins of illegal robocalls;
• Requiring other service providers with which the phone companies contract to cooperate in traceback identification.

The full principles can be read here.

In May 2019, Shapiro led a bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general in calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take further action to stop the growing proliferation of illegal robocalls and spoofing.

Additionally, in 2017, Attorney General Shapiro urged the FCC to adopt rules to allow telephone providers to block illegal robocalls coming from certain types of phone numbers. Later that year, the FCC issued the 2017 Call Blocking Order.

Pennsylvania residents who believe they have received an illegal robocall should file a complaint at www.attorneygeneral.gov.