House Passes Buchanan-Backed Bill to Combat Robocalls

The U.S. House today passed bipartisan legislation supported by Congressman Vern Buchanan to crack down on illegal robocalls that victimize millions of people each year.  

The updated Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act merged provisions from similar versions of the legislation that separately passed the House and Senate earlier this year. Last month, Buchanan praised the bipartisan compromise and called on congressional leaders to fast track consideration of the bill. The measure passed the House with broad bipartisan support and now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The bipartisan TRACED Act allows regulators to swiftly track down scammers and penalize them with a fine up to $10,000 per call. It also requires phone companies, like Verizon and AT&T, to upgrade their caller ID systems to notify customers if a call is coming from a legitimate number as well as implement call authentication technology and block robocalls without additional charges to consumers. The bill will also extend the statute of limitations to four years to give the federal government adequate time to prosecute illegal robocallers.

“Too many Floridians continue to be harassed by the nationwide onslaught of robocalls,” Buchanan said. “Robocalls are more than just a minor inconvenience – phone scams can defraud innocent Americans out of their life savings – especially vulnerable seniors.”

Americans were hit with record high 5.7 billion robocalls, or more than 17 per person, just in October alone. According to the new report by robocall-blocking app YouMail, this is a 25 percent increase from September.

Last year, robocalls increased by 46 percent as nearly 48 billion were placed in the U.S. The majority of consumer complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission relate to unwanted calls, many of which maliciously hide or disguise the caller’s identity and location. These illegal calls often are from phone numbers that appear similar to those they’re targeting, known as “spoofing.” These fraudulent calls comprised roughly a quarter of the 26 billion robo-calls placed to U.S. mobile numbers last year, according to one industry estimate.

Area code 941, which covers most of Florida’s 16th congressional district, has received over 120 million robocalls in 2019. Also included in the 16th district, area code 813, received over 296 million robocalls in 2019.