FCC Moves To Prevent Scammers From Leaving ‘Ringless Voicemails’

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel submitted a new proposal to tackle ringless voicemail robocalls made by scammers. This comes as the agency steps up its efforts in the fight against spam calls, which show no signs of dwindling as the YouMail RoboCall Index reported 50 billion such calls in 2021. 

According to SlashGear, ringless voicemails are a specific type of robocall used by telemarketers and scammers to leave a recorded message directly in a recipient’s inbox without having their phone ring. 

This could potentially leave the recipient confused at having a missed call, or having their inboxes fill up with these unwanted spam messages instead of actual voicemails left by family and friends who need to get in contact. 

“Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive, and can lead to fraud like other robocalls—so it should face the same consumer protection rules,” explained Rosenworcel.

“No one wants to wade through voicemail spam, or miss important messages because their mailbox is full. This FCC action would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them,” she added.

As per Law Street Media, should the four-person Commission vote to accept the proposal, the regulations currently protecting consumers against robocalls will be expanded to include this subset of ringless voicemails too.

[via SlashGear and Law Street Media, cover image via Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com]