On December 31, 2025 FVRO made public comments regarding the Federal Communication Commission’s anti-robocalling rule making docket. These comments highlighted the steps the FCC could take to protect Americans from illegal robocalls and telecom-initiated fraud, but, so far, has chosen not to.
✅ The FCC should investigate all tracebacks.
Since 2017 a consortium of U.S. phone companies has traced tens of thousands of suspected scam phone calls back to their sources and provided this information to the FCC and other law enforcement agencies. Yet action is taken in response to this information only on rare occasions.
✅ The FCC should investigate Private Entity Portal reports.
Section 10 of the TRACED Act requires the FCC to maintain a reporting portal for private entities to file reports about illegal robocalling. Since 2024, FVRO has filed 25 such reports. It does not appear anyone at the FCC reads these reports, much less takes action on them.
✅ The FCC should investigate robocalling complaints submitted by consumers.
Americans submit more than a million complaints about illegal and unwanted phone calls to the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission each year. This data is a treasure trove of actionable intelligence. For example, in December 2025, 51% of FTC unwanted call complaints were categorized (that is, the complaint provided a subject about the phone call). 57% of categorized complaints were about “reducing your debt.” 45% of debt reduction complaints were from toll-free phone numbers registered to one small phone company. This means at least 26% of robocalls in December 2025 came from one source (assuming categorized complaints are representative of uncategorized complaints). It does not appear anyone at FCC or FTC is analyzing to taking action on this data.
✅ The FCC Commissioners should establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for consumer protection activities.
In every other business in the world, employees are evaluated based on how well they do their jobs and how much they contribute to the goals of the organizations they work for. The FCC should not be any different.
✅ The FCC should comply with Section 11 of the TRACED Act.
The TRACED Act requires the FCC to refer evidence of criminal robocalling and caller ID spoofing to the Justice Department. Despite receiving millions of consumer complaints, tens of thousands of traceback reports, and hundreds of investigative cases from telecom providers, the FCC has only made nine such referrals in six years. If the FCC really wants to stop illegal robocalls and telecom-initiated fraud, it needs to stop sitting on evidence.
✅ The FCC should stop trying to hide its consumer protection performance statistics from Congress and the American people.
When FVRO told Members of Congress that the FCC had only taken action against one of 50 voice service providers that refused to respond to requests to trace scam calls, the FCC stopped publishing Traceback Transparency Reports. When FVRO filed 21 complaints with the FCC about voice service providers that appeared to have registered using stolen identities, the FCC used a loophole in the TRACED Act to push back publishing its Section 11 referral statistics for a year. Then, when it did publish referral statistics, it changed the wording so it looked like it had made eight Section 11 referrals in 2024. FVRO filed Freedom of Information Act requests and discovered the FCC has only made one Section 11 referral in 2024 and one in 2025. Government employees work for us. We pay their salaries with our tax money. They need to do their job and stop lying when they get caught not doing their job.
Since these comments were posted, the FCC has proposed new rules, potentially requiring everyone in America to provide a photo ID and residential address to get a phone number. This will not stop scam calls. Criminals will just use fake IDs or pay others to get phone numbers for them. Meanwhile, an estimated 90 million Americans who use prepaid phone service will lose even more of their privacy.
Please take a moment and call or write your Member of Congress to demand the FCC do its job. Find Your Representative
FVRO’s comments can be viewed HERE.
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