The federal government has decided to sever ties with one robocall carrier operating on U.S. phone networks, yet Americans are still inundated with billions of these calls every month.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has directed U.S. phone networks to block all communications from Digital Solutions, Inc., an announcement made in a press release on Monday. The agency claims that this carrier has been involved in sending out illegal prerecorded messages promoting fraudulent loans and tax relief. However, this action only addresses one company amidst a sea of robocalls flooding into U.S. networks.
“The FCC is ramping up its efforts to combat illegal robocalls using new, advanced strategies across the telecom sector and tackling the issue at every step of the call process,” said Hunter Deeley, the FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief, in the press release. “Today’s enforcement decision takes down another uncooperative provider that has persistently ignored the rules required to maintain a safe network for consumers.”
The order mandates that U.S. voice and intermediate carriers block all traffic from Digital Solutions within 30 days. The company has also been delisted from the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD), which contains carriers that have committed to using caller ID authentication and have plans to mitigate robocalls.
Earlier this year, the Industry Traceback Group traced questionable calls back to Digital Solutions, as noted in the order. These robocalls, which were unsolicited, offered loan and tax assistance.
Digital Solutions indicated to investigators that the calls originated from its network and identified three specific customers as the sources, according to the press release from Monday.
The Enforcement Bureau reached out to Digital Solutions on April 2 and requested an explanation by June 29 about the calls, but the company failed to respond.
In August alone, Americans received around 3.9 billion robocalls, as reported by YouMail. Over the course of the past year, the total reached 48.5 billion — which is actually fewer than in any other 12-month period since August 2022.
“It’s somewhat like a large-scale game of whack-a-mole,” YouMail CEO Alex Quilici remarked to the Daily Caller News Foundation in August. “The enforcers are at a disadvantage since they must operate within the law while robocallers can shift quickly and disregard legal constraints.”
According to a statement from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in July, tackling illegal robocalls remains the commission’s “top consumer protection priority.”
The FCC has the authority to impose fines on robocallers, but only the Justice Department can pursue legal action against them in court, as indicated by a Congressional Research Service report. Out of nine cases the FCC referred to the department between January 2018 and November 2023, only two were pursued by the department.
