ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL AND BIPARTISAN COALITION PUSH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO FURTHER CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL AND BIPARTISAN COALITION PUSH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO FURTHER CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS

July 08, 2026

Chicago - Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a bipartisan coalition of 49 attorneys general, today called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen rules that would cut off scammers' access to legitimate telephone numbers to prevent scammers from deceiving Americans through robocalls and text messages.

Raoul and the coalition, as part of the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, asked the FCC to work on this issue in 2021 and are now responding to the FCC's proposed rules.

"While the FCC's proposed rules support the progress we have made in our work to stop robocallers, the proposed rules fall short of the need," Raoul said. "Instead of using spoofed phone numbers to scam Illinois consumers, robocallers are increasingly buying millions of real numbers so that consumers think they are receiving a call from a legitimate business or agency. We encourage the FTC to take additional steps to address robocallers' efforts to circumvent our mitigation attempts."

In their comment letter, Raoul and the coalition explain that while the FCC's proposed rules will prevent scammers from illegally "spoofing" phone numbers to make calls look they are coming from a legitimate company or government agency, scammers are now purchasing legitimate phone numbers to make robocalls.

As a result, Raoul and the attorneys general are asking the federal government to take additional steps to strengthen the FCC's proposed rules, including:

• Require every company that is authorized to purchase and then resell phone numbers in North America to meet stronger certification rules and share how and to whom they are assigning numbers.
• Require these companies to submit regular reports about the sale and use of numbers, so law enforcement can trace illegal robocalls back to the source. These reports will also help law enforcement hold all the companies in the call path accountable for selling or transmitting numbers used to conduct illegal robocalls.
• Require people and entities that are applying to access phone numbers to confirm they will not use them to make illegal robocalls.
• Block the sale of phone numbers to entities that are not tied to a calling or texting service. Robocallers often buy these numbers without linking them to a legitimate phone service since they do not plan on using the numbers for legitimate calling and texting purposes.
• Prohibit number cycling, which is when an entity buys lots of numbers and then uses them on a rotating or single-use basis to avoid detection by tools that flag numbers used to make illegal robocalls.
• Restrict the offering of trial numbers to discourage scammers from taking advantage of them to harm consumers.

Joining Raoul in sending the letter were the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.