Tech, unregulated: Washington Post warns Robocalls could get worse

Automated calls are annoying. There is rarely a day when you aren’t greeted with an unanticipated call from an unrecognized number. And to make matters worse, Robocalls are expected to surge in number in the coming times. This gets even worse during the tax season. The online site AllAreaCodes.com looked at the number of complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and found that that phone scams increase by 20 percent in March and April as the tax filing deadline approaches.

According to a report by the Washington Post, financial corporations and retailers are trying to persuade the current US administration to make it easier to send robocalls and texts to the masses. If the government approves of this request, industries would soon be permitted to send unlimited texts and calls, without the consumer having a say in the matter.

Robocalls are fine as long as they come from legitimate businesses. For instance, alerts from a drugstore for a person to pick up their prescription, or an automated voice call from your bank, alerting your credit card bill due date, are useful. The sanctity of robocalls is maintained as long as telemarketing calls and alerts from companies are genuine and consented. Per the Post, almost three-quarters of more than four billion robocalls placed in June, according to data published by YouMail, came from companies the customers had a genuine relationship with.

However, some of these calls are actually from scammers who abuse automated systems. According to the Post, Adrian Abramovich was fined $120 million for placing 96 million unsought calls offering fake travel deals in just three months. Businesses are equally guilty. Navient, a financial service company, is highly active in voicing its opinion on loosening restrictions on robocalls. Multiple lawsuits have hit Navient, as reported by the Post, for harassing consumers with automated calls. Last year consumer groups had requested the Federal Communications Commission to look into the company’s practices.

The task of regulating these robocalls lie in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission. Per the Post, the FCC along with its sister organization Federal Trade Commission is figuring on out how to rethink the robocall rules, while focusing on combating fraud and abuse. The last time the FCC tried to implement laws to cut down robocalls, they were throttled by the trade association of debt collectors. This time as well, the Post says, businesses led by the US Chamber of Commerce have opposed the idea of adding any federal laws that would restrict how businesses communicate with their customers.

"We are at serious risk of seeing the existing robocall problem, which is already serious, get far, far worse,” said Margot Saunders, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.