49 state AGs press the FCC to choke off scammers' number supply

Forty-nine state attorneys general — the NAAG Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force — filed reply comments urging the FCC to tighten numbering policy, the least-watched lever in the robocall fight. The mechanism they’re targeting: scammers buy legitimate numbers in bulk and cycle through them, often placing only a few calls per number before moving on, to stay under call-analytics thresholds. One example cited in the filing had scammers placing more than 17.3 million calls in a single day through one carrier, rarely using a number more than twice.

The FCC’s numbering NPRM already proposes extending Robocall Mitigation Database certification to all providers and resellers, expanding number-utilization reporting, and limiting resale to a single level. The AGs want more: prohibit number cycling, restrict trial numbers, require applicants to attest they won’t use numbers for illegal robocalls, and block sales to entities not tied to a legitimate service. Florida, Montana, and Texas didn’t sign.

Numbering is the supply side of the problem, and it gets a fraction of the attention that call authentication does — watch the Regulatory Watch dispatches as the comments land. You can sign every call flawlessly and still lose if the number supply itself is a turnstile.