WASHINGTON _ Help for dealing with annoying, persistent and downright weird robocalls is coming. Slowly.
Washington, D.C. has launched an aggressive effort to hunt down scammers and make it easier for consumers to block them. Legislation passed Thursday by the Senate and earlier this month by the House will trigger an aggressive push to crack down on the billions of unwanted calls.
The new push would allow fines of $10,000 per scammer call, give the Federal Communications Commission strong new clout to go after them, and require phone providers to block unauthorized calls. It will also help stop the faking of caller IDs, so consumers will know who is actually calling.
Paul Florack, vice president of product management and development at Transaction Network Services, a telecom solutions providers, said consumers are likely to see these changes in a few years:
_Many spam calls will simply be blocked so consumers won't get them at all.
_If a spam call gets through, new technology will alert the consumer with a warning such as "potential spam."
_If a call is legitimate, some symbol _ like a check mark _ will show up on caller ID.
Alex Quilici, chief executive officer at YouMail, which tracks and studies robocalls, called the legislation "a good first step. You're going to see gradual improvement."
"The bill moves the fight forward on robocalls," added Margot Saunders, senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center.
The bill won't suddenly stop the calls, and it will take awhile before any significant effect is felt. Scammers are adept at creating new ways around enforcement efforts, and business interests have concerns about the government initiatives.
While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has not taken a position on the bill, it supports efforts to stop illegal robocalls.
The chamber, though, is concerned that legitimate calls will be blocked. What, officials ask, will happen to robocalls informing someone their medicine is ready or their credit card identity has been stolen?
The responsibility for stopping unwanted calls in the future will remain with the FCC, which oversees the nation's communications networks.
The FCC, state attorneys general and others have been trying for years to crack down on the calls and the callers. About 60% of consumer complaints this year to the FCC involve such calls.
In June, the FCC ruled that phone companies could "aggressively block unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers, and Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed a rule requiring carriers to adopt a call authentication system that will allow consumers to know exactly who's calling.
In the first 11 months of this year, YouMail found Americans received 54 billion robocalls, already up from the 47.8 billion logged in all of 2018 and 30.5 billion in 2017.
The top robocall scam involved health-related calls, the company said, followed by calls about interest rates, Social Security and student loans. Each topic was the subject of at least 100 million robocalls.
Among cities, Atlanta logged the most robocalls, 199 million, followed by Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston and New York.
Washington's effort has gained unusually strong support from Republicans, Democrats and regulators. It passed the Senate by voice vote, and the House legislation passed 417 to 3.
Only one senator has expressed reservations. "I'm not a big fan of it," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, told McClatchy when asked about the legislation. Asked why, he said, "I don't have a comment for you now."
Pai, the FCC chairman, supports the legislation, calling the bill "much-needed bipartisan, anti-robocall legislation."
The urgency comes from constituents all over the country. "Robocalls are the number one issue I hear about when I am home," said Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Kentucky.
"Talk to anyone ... and you will hear just how annoyed people are by those calls," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey.
Among the bill's other provisions:
_It will be easier for the FCC to go after first-time offenders. Currently the FCC has a short statute of limitations regarding robocall violators. It would extend the statute of limitations and make it easier to investigate first-time offenders.
_New fines can be imposed. Intentional violations would be subject to fines of up to $10,000 per call. However, the FCC has in recent years had trouble collecting fines now in effect because many scammers are difficult to find.
_It will become simpler for consumers to know if a call is authentic. The bill says carriers, "over time," must implement new technology to assure that caller ID information has been authenticated. The FCC would have to issue rules within a year that partly uses new methods for authenticating calls.
_Consumers will be able to block unwanted calls at no additional charge on their bill.
_The FCC will have to give evidence of possible criminal robocall violations to the Justice Department.
_The FCC will crack down on one-ring scam calls. Such calls often try to get the consumers to call back, and since they can be from foreign callers, the consumer can end up with a big bill.
How quickly and boldly all this happens now is largely up to the FCC. While Pai has made cracking down on robocalls a major initiative, activists like the notion that the bill actually requires the FCC to act.
"The FCC can't change its mind if companies object," Saunders said. "They have the power to really shut down robocalls."
Just don't expect any quick change, warned Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, a key bill sponsor.
"Let's be clear," he said. "While this legislation will make a difference, the scammers are going to try and do an end around whatever technology the carriers use to try and block these calls, authenticate these calls, stop these calls."
