Attorney General John M. Formella along with a bipartisan coalition of 48 of his fellow attorneys general are calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate telephone numbers. Without that access, scammers can’t use real numbers to deceive and scam Americans. The Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force asked the FCC to work on this issue in 2021, and members of this coalition are now responding to the FCC’s proposed rules.
“Approximately 55.4 million robocalls were placed to area code 603 so far in 2026,” said Attorney General Formella. “Although this is 11 million fewer calls than in 2025 over the same period, it is still too many. Through our work with the Task Force, my office will continue to work on rules and regulations to reduce the number of robocalls made.”
Last year, Americans received approximately 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams. Historically, scammers would illegally “spoof” other people’s phone numbers to make it look like a call was coming from a legitimate company or government agency. But scammers can’t easily do this anymore after the federal government and state attorneys general took action to cut down on illegal spoofing. Now, scammers often purchase legitimate phone numbers and use them to make robocalls.
While most legitimate businesses use the same phone number for many years, scammers cycle through millions of brand-new phone numbers, which helps them avoid detection by spam filters. In one North Carolina case, scammers made more than 17.3 million calls on a single day through one phone company – but they generally didn’t use the same number more than twice to make those calls, which is a common tactic among scammers.
In addition to the steps the FCC is already taking, the bipartisan attorneys general are asking the federal government to do more, including:
- Requiring every company that is authorized to purchase and then resell phone numbers in North America to meet stronger certification rules and share how and to whom they are assigning numbers.
- Requiring these companies to submit regular reports about the sale and use of numbers, so law enforcement can trace illegal robocalls back to the source. These reports will also help law enforcement hold all the companies in the call path accountable for selling or transmitting numbers used to conduct illegal robocalls.
- Requiring people and entities that are applying to access phone numbers to confirm that they won’t use them to make illegal robocalls.
- Blocking the sale of phone numbers to entities that aren’t tied to a calling or texting service. Robocallers often buy these numbers without linking them to a legitimate phone service, since they don’t plan on using the numbers for legitimate calling and texting purposes.
- Prohibiting number cycling, which is when an entity buys lots of numbers and then uses them on a rotating, sometimes single-use basis to avoid being detected by tools that flag numbers used to make illegal robocalls.
- Restricting the offering of trial numbers to discourage scammers from taking advantage of them to harm consumers.
Attorney General Formella encourages consumers to be vigilant regarding common robocall scammer’s techniques to steal your personal information and money including creating a sense of urgency and demanding immediate payment via unusual methods like gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency.
If you suspect you have been scammed by a robocaller, call the Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-888-468-4454 for assistance. The Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau investigates unfair, deceptive, or unreasonable practices involving New Hampshire consumers. You may file a complaint online at https://www.doj.nh.gov/consumer/complaints.
