49 State Attorneys General Urge FCC to Ban Robocall Number Cycling

A bipartisan coalition of 49 state attorneys general, organized as the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, has submitted a formal request to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen regulations against illegal robocalls. The group, which includes representatives from New York, Illinois, and Missouri, argues that current FCC proposals focusing on spoofing are insufficient because scammers have shifted to purchasing and rapidly rotating through millions of legitimate phone numbers to evade spam filters, a practice known as number cycling.

The coalition proposes several specific measures to close these loopholes, including stricter certification and reporting requirements for phone number resellers and a total prohibition on number cycling. They are also calling for mandatory sharing of assignment data with law enforcement to better trace illegal calls and restrictions on the sale of trial numbers. Only Florida and Montana did not join the effort.

This regulatory push follows data showing a massive scale of fraud, with reports that Americans received approximately 29.6 billion fraudulent robocalls and texts last year. While some reports estimate financial losses at nearly $2 billion, other sources cited losses ranging from $2 billion up to $30 billion. In Louisiana, the Robocall Index reported over 776 million robocalls within the state alone so far this year.