How many times have you taken a call and been greeted by a robot telling you about your car’s extended warranty? Well, that number should drop to zero thanks to our friends at the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC has cracked down on those calls and is ordering phone companies to permanently shut down any traffic related to those auto warranty robocalls. U.S. providers now must “take all necessary steps to avoid carrying this robocall traffic,” per a statement from the FCC’s Robocall Response Team.
That’s not all, they must also directly show the FCC the measures they are taking to eliminate these pesky phone calls — meaning, they can’t just say they’re doing something about it…they are being forced to actually do something about it.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel explained, “Consumers are out of patience and I’m right there with them.” She adds these spammers have been responsible for about eight billion unwanted calls since 2018. In 2021, calls about one’s extended car warranty were the top complaint to the FCC.
Not only that, these robocallers might be dragged to court following an investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau — in addition to a lawsuit filed by Ohio’s Attorney General.
Still, we’re not totally out of the clear when it comes to robocalls in general. In all of June, Americans fielded 4.3 billion spam robocalls, which marks an 8.5 percent rise from May 2022.
This is prompting the FCC to come down on carriers to do more to weed out these robocallers, most of whom originate outside the country and wind up spoofing American numbers. They also gave carriers permission to block these calls outright.
No word yet if the FCC will also crack down on auto warranty spam text messages and mail.