Attorney General Dan Rayfield is calling on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to tighten the rules on who gets to carry phone calls in the United States, so scammers have a harder time reaching Oregonians.
“Most Oregonians have stopped picking up calls from numbers they don’t recognize,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “But that means people miss calls that matter, from a doctor’s office or a child’s school, while scammers keep dialing. Right now, it’s too easy for a shady phone company to get into the system, and too easy for it to come back after getting kicked out. We’re asking the FCC to close that door and keep it closed.”
Before a phone company can carry calls across the U.S. network, it has to register in a federal database called the Robocall Mitigation Database. Each company has to explain who it is and what it’s doing to stop illegal robocalls. Other phone companies are only supposed to accept calls from companies on that list.
The problem is that registering takes very little effort, and shady phone companies can stay on it with few consequences. The attorneys general say a stronger database could work as a real gatekeeper, keeping illegal calls off the network to begin with.
In formal comments on the FCC’s proposed changes, the AG Rayfield and 48 other attorneys general supported the agency’s plans and urged it to go further by:
- Checking the information before a company gets registered in the database. The FCC should verify what companies submit before they can start sending calls.
- Requiring more disclosure. Companies should say whether they use third parties or related businesses, back up any claim that they operate in the U.S., and explain how they get phone numbers.
- Making it harder for repeat offenders to get in, or get back in. That includes suspending or removing them, raising the bar for their robocall plans, and requiring proof that they’re financially sound.
- Holding companies responsible for anything filed on their behalf, including filings made by outside firms.
- Requiring companies to certify the basics, that their filings are truthful, that they follow FCC robocall rules, and that they’ll respond within 24 hours when investigators trace a call back to them. False certifications would make removal faster.
- Making sure customers hear about it when a company is cut off. Companies hit with an FCC removal, suspension or blocking order should have to tell their customers, and other carriers should be able to warn those customers that their calls will be blocked.
- Making past filings public, so law enforcement can see the track record of companies that have been removed.
- Moving quickly, and keeping current protections in place until the new rules take effect.
Operation Robocall Roundup
Attorney General Rayfield is part of the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in 2025.
In the first phase, the task force sent warning letters to 37 smaller phone companies that weren’t meeting basic FCC requirements to stop illegal and suspicious robocalls. Over the past year, the FCC has acted against at least 16 of them, either ordering fixes or removing them from the database entirely, which cuts them off from the U.S. phone network.
In the second phase, the task force:
- Took on four of the country’s largest companies that pass calls between networks.
- Urged the FCC to cut off scammers’ access to legitimate phone numbers.
- Urged the FCC to require phone companies to verify who their customers are and what kind of business they do.
- Urged the FCC to require phone companies to make sure the carriers sending them calls are legitimate and aren’t passing along large volumes of illegal calls.
Attorney General Rayfield signed this letter alongside the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
