Attorney General Paxton Co-Leads 51 Attorney General Coalition in Securing Nationwide Agreement with Voice Service Providers to Address Robocalls

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton, co-leading a coalition of 51 attorneys general, secured a nationwide agreement with 12 of the nation’s premier voice service providers to implement principles that take the fight directly to robocallers and scammers and empower citizens to take back their privacy.

“If you have been guilty of leaving your phone turned on, you know it is getting hard to participate in a worship service, watch a movie, or talk to your loved ones without being interrupted by a call from a fake phone number. Texans’ private phones are being taken over by constant calls, invading their privacy and all too often defrauding them of their hard-earned money,” said Attorney General Paxton. “My office has a history of aggressively pursuing illegal telemarketers through litigation. And now we look forward to working with voice service providers to squash scammers’ access to Texans. We won’t stop until the robocalls do.”

Under the principles announced today, voice service providers will:

• Implement call-blocking technology at the network level at no cost to customers
• Make additional call-blocking and labeling tools available to customers for free
• Implement technology to authenticate that callers are coming from a valid source
• Monitor their networks for robocall traffic, and take appropriate action if suspicious activity is detected

The phone companies will also assist anti-robocall enforcement by:

• Knowing who their customers are so bad actors 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 telephone companies with which they contract to cooperate in traceback identification

Robocalls and telemarketing calls are consistently the number one source of consumer complaints at many state Attorneys General offices, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. For more information about illegal robocalls and caller ID spoofing, visit the attorney general’s website at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/phone-mail-and-fax-scams/how-spot-and-report-phone-scams.

To view the anti-robocall principles, click here.