Robocall Crackdown May Be Too Late for Americans in Earthquake and Wildfire Zones

When U.S. officials announced a massive crackdown on illegal robocalls and annoying telemarketers on Tuesday, they may have acted too late to protect the millions of Americans living in areas vulnerable to natural disasters.

People who reside in regions rocked regularly by earthquakes, floods and fires are constantly reminded that an old-school landline — the preferred way robocallers and telemarketers try to reach people — is potentially life-saving.

“In an emergency, a good old-fashioned landline phone has been regarded as the most reliable method of communication,” the AARP says, adding that when storms knock out power, cell towers “often go dark, as do high-speed internet connections. Landlines, on the other hand, work without power or battery-operated phones.”

But many consumers in disaster-prone regions are so fed up with unwanted calls that they’re ditching their corded phones.

Priya Raghubir, a professor of marketing and dean of New York University’s Stern School of Business, said Wednesday that robocallers had already endangered a slice of America — and that the federal crackdown may have come too late.

"Even though landlines are meant to protect you, in case of earthquakes, some people are so fed up with these telemarketing calls that they have gotten rid of their landlines and rely entirely on their cell phones," Raghubir said. “It’s a safety issue.” Some 85% of all calls to landlines last October through December were scams or unwanted telemarketing, spam blocking company Imp says.

The Federal Communications Commission said it was joining the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general in a broad effort to combat the billinos of junk calls consumers receive. “Operation Stop Spam Calls” aims to crackdown on illegal telemarketers, the shady companies that hire their services and lead generators who collect and provide consumers’ telephone numbers to robocallers. 

Voice over Internet Protocol service providers, which facilitate illegal robocalls and are often based overseas, are also targets of the operation, according to a news release from the FTC. 

U.S. consumers received nearly 4.9 billion robocalls in June, slightly down from 5.1 billion robocalls received in May, according to YouMail, a robocall blocking service based in Irvine, California. That amounted to 161.9 million telemarketing calls each day, or nearly seven million per hour. 

Despite the rise of smartphones, the corded phone hasn't quite yet gone the way of the horse and buggy. Some 40 million American households, or 28.7% of the total, have only a landline, according to the nonprofit Community Phone. A further 38 million have both an old school apparatus and a cell phone. 

More than one in two, or 53%, of Americans over the age of 65 rely on a landline. But only 15% of landline users have a spam blocker, despite receiving an average of 43 unwanted calls each week. 

In 2019, the regulators scrapped rules requiring telecommunication carriers to run copper wires to every home. That’s made the business of annoying calls lucrative, and put it on a collision course with legitimate direct marketers. Telemarketers in the U.S. had revenue of $27.9 billion last year, according to IBISWorld.

The FTC has brought a total of 167 cases against illegal robocallers and Do Not Call violators. Courts have ordered defendants to pay more than $2 billion, and the FTC has collected $394 million, with much of the cash used to refund defrauded customers. 

Raghubir said that if the new enforcement drive can help weed out bad apples, legitimate direct marketers could be reestablished as a trustworthy connection between companies and consumers. Fraudulent telemarketers scam $40 billion out of 17.6 million Americans each year, according to the Washington, D.C. attorney general.

“If you can clean up the mess, and it is a mess, the calls you might get might not be these crank calls,” Raghubir said. “In the longer run, as the credibility of the telemarketing industry needs to be reestablished, it could be a very good thing for direct marketing.”

In an effort to prevent consumers from being scammed, the FTC makes recordings of robocalls uncovered through its “Project Point of No Entry” available to the public. Consumers can report robocalls at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or call the FTC’s Consumer Response Center at 877-382-4357.