Salem, Oregon – Attorney General Dan Rayfield is spearheading a nationwide effort to protect consumers from illegal robocalls. The coalition, comprising attorneys general from 49 states, territories and districts, has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to close loopholes that let scam callers slip through the telephone network.
Why the push matters
According to the coalition’s research, Americans received more than 29.6 billion fraudulent calls and text messages in the most recent year, resulting in almost $2 billion in financial losses. Those numbers illustrate a growing threat to families and small businesses across the country.
What the FCC currently requires
Federal rules known as the “Know Your Upstream Provider” (KYUP) regulations require telecommunications providers to take reasonable steps to verify that they are not accepting traffic from illegal scam operations. In practice, many calls travel through a chain of intermediate carriers before reaching a consumer. Critics say some carriers skip the required vetting, allowing scam traffic to pass unchecked.
Rayfield’s criticism and the coalition’s proposals
Rayfield warned that Oregonians should not have to treat every unknown call as a threat. “Scammers are exploiting gaps in a system that’s supposed to protect people, and some phone companies are letting it happen because it’s profitable to look the other way,” he said. The coalition’s proposals call for the FCC to establish clear, minimum vetting standards, require providers to collect verified details about upstream partners, continuously monitor those partners, and terminate contracts with non‑compliant operators.
Additional recommendations include mandatory regular compliance checks, stronger caller‑ID protections against number spoofing, meaningful financial penalties for violations, and required record‑keeping to aid law‑enforcement investigations.
Enforcement actions to date
The effort is organized through the Anti‑Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in 2025. In its first phase, the task force issued warning letters to 37 smaller phone companies for failing to block suspicious traffic. The FCC subsequently ordered six of those companies to resolve the issues or risk disconnection from the national telephone network.
In the second phase, the task force expanded its focus to four of the nation’s largest telecommunications firms that route call traffic between providers. The coalition now includes attorneys general from major states such as California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
What’s next
The coalition plans to continue pressing the FCC for rulemaking that would make upstream vetting a mandatory, enforceable standard. If adopted, the rules could dramatically reduce the volume of illegal robocalls and protect consumers from financial harm.
Rayfield emphasized that the fight is about safeguarding families and preserving the integrity of the nation’s communications infrastructure. “If a company profits from routing calls onto our phones, it has a responsibility to know who it’s doing business with, and the FCC needs to hold them to that,” he said.
State and local officials across the coalition have pledged to monitor the FCC’s response and to pursue further legal action if the agency fails to act decisively.
Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.
