Attorney General Rob Bonta Wants To Hold Phone Service Providers Accountable For Robocalls

If you've been barraged by calls from numbers you don't recognize, you may already know this: a new report from the California Public Interest Research Group finds that most phone service providers aren't doing enough to stop illegal robocalls.

Phone service providers have until Sept. 28 to comply with a federal law requiring them to implement technology to block such calls altogether, but just 17% of the 3,000 providers nationwide are completely up to date with that rule.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday called on the FCC to hold accountable those companies that don't comply by that deadline.

"When Californians pick up the phone, they should feel confident about the identity of the person on the other end of the line, plain and simple. Telecom companies must block robocalls and do so swiftly, because every day they wait, another Californian is taken advantage of," said Bonta.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2019 that gives the state more authority to crack down on callers that fake their caller ID to defraud people or otherwise steal personal information. The Federal Trade Commission says scam robocalls every year lead to $10 billion in fraud.