Attorney General Gentner Drummond this week urged the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen rules cutting off scammers' access to legitimate telephone numbers. The move aims to protect Oklahomans from fraudsters who use real numbers to deceive and steal from them.
Drummond joined 48 other state attorneys general in responding to the FCC's proposed rules, which stem from a request the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force made to the commission in 2021. Con artists used to illegally “spoof” other people’s phone numbers to make it look like a call from a legitimate organization. But fraudsters can’t easily do that anymore after the federal government and state attorneys general took action to cut down on illegal spoofing. Now, scammers often purchase real phone numbers and use them to make robocalls.
“Scammers shouldn't be able to buy their way into Oklahomans' trust with a phone number that looks legitimate,” Drummond said. “Every number a scammer buys is another chance to steal from someone's grandmother, drain a family's savings or con a small business owner out of a day's work. It's time to make it harder to get a number and easier to catch the people abusing them.”
