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Representatives Krishnamoorthi And Porter Introduce Robotext Scam Prevention Act To Help Stop Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars In Annual Fraud Schemes

July 12, 2022

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08) and Congresswoman Katie Porter (CA-45) introduced the Robotext Scam Prevention Act, along with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) and Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05), Danny Davis (IL-07), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), and Shontel Brown (OH-11_, to prohibit the use of automated telephone equipment in sending unsolicited text messages. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 2.2 million Americans reported losses totaling $3.3 billion to digital fraud in 2020 – 27 percent of which resulted from a text message and 31 percent from a phone call. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also reported that it received about 14,000 consumer complaints in 2020 concerning unwanted text messages – an increase of nearly 146 percent over the last year.

"As my Subcommittee's investigation and others have shown, robotext scams aren't simply an annoyance, they cost American consumers hundreds of millions of dollars each year," said Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. "While we must continue to educate Americans about how to protect themselves and their loved ones from fraud, we also need stronger enforcement mechanisms to crack down on the criminals who perpetrate these scams. Our legislation, the Robotext Scam Prevention Act, would do precisely that by expanding the Federal Communications Commissions' enforcement powers to bring digital scammers to justice, regardless of the technology they use to send these texts."

"Con artists are swindling Americans out of millions of dollars each year, in part because law enforcement doesn't have the authority to crack down on robotexting," said Congresswoman Porter, a longtime consumer protection advocate. "I'm proud to join Rep. Krishnamoorthi in introducing the Robotext Scam Prevention Act, which will better protect families by closing the loopholes scammers use to avoid accountability."

The Robotext Scam Prevention Act will amend the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to expand the definition of "automatic telephone dialing system" to include a wider variety of devices that automatically dial or text numbers, not just those using a random or sequential number generator. The bill will also expand the restrictions on calls using automatic telephone dialing systems (robocalls) to include texts as well. The bill will also require the FCC to conduct rulemaking within 18 months to define terms such as "automatically," "dial," and "send" in accordance with modern dialing practices and consumer preferences. The bill does not prohibit situations where an automatic telephone dialing system is used to call or text a number held by a person who consented to receiving such calls/texts, as long as the caller/texter first checks the FCC Reassigned Telephone Number Database and determines the number had not been reassigned to a new person since consent was given.

The full text of the bill is available here.