We are happy to announce that early in 2020, President Trump enacted a new law that makes it infinitely more difficult for illegal robocalls to continue targeting you.

“President Donald Trump has signed a new law aimed at tackling the scourge of illegal robocalls.

The bipartisan legislation expanded the power of the Federal Communications Commission to deter spam calls and reinforced the responsibility of individual phone companies to protect their own consumers.”

Read more about the new law here:
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/law-robocalls/story?id=68008423


“Most recently, in 2012, the FCC revised its TCPA rules to require telemarketers (1) to obtain prior express written consent from consumers before robocalling them, (2) to no longer allow telemarketers to use an “established business relationship” to avoid getting consent from consumers when their home phones, and (3) to require telemarketers to provide an automated, interactive “opt-out” mechanism during each robocall so consumers can immediately tell the telemarketer to stop calling.”
FCC

Telemarketing calls and robocalls can trick customers into giving private information out of fear. There have instances of these calls telling customers that they owe money and need to give their card information, there have also been instances where they are told that they are in trouble with the federal government and need to give their social security information. These calls ultimately lead to credit card fraud and identity theft. The groups most at risk for this are those the most unfamiliar with technology. Seniors especially are known to be at risk for phishing and robocalls.

The FCC believes that the companies should not be held accountable until they are doing something like fraud or phishing. But telemarketers and robocallers prey on the lonely and vulnerable. They manipulate them for their own greed. These companies interrupt your day and can affect work. If you answer the phone for a telemarketer and then miss an actual work call it can affect business. Regardless of whether phishing actually occurs or not, the fact that it can disturb the workplace is enough for it to be a problem.

See This Article on Chicago Tribune.

Accountability: “Ransomware The legislation also creates tougher penalties for hackers who break into computer systems and install ransomware, a type of malware used to lock a computer system and demand a ransom before unlocking the system.
Under the new law, hackers could face an average of nearly six years in a Department of Correction Facility for a Level 5 felony, or an average of nearly three years for a Level 4 felony.”

We need to make telemarketers have the accountability that hackers have. If the laws are as tough on them as it is on hackers there is less incentive to bully and scam people through phone calls.