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Paxton Petitions FCC to Better Protect Consumers From Illegal Spam Texts
AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton joined a multistate comment letter to the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to prevent consumers from receiving unwanted, illegal spam text messages.
The letter is in support of the FCC’s proposed rule to require mobile wireless providers to block illegal text messages at the network level when the messages appear to be from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers, and numbers on a Do-Not-Originate list. This proposal builds upon the FCC’s prior work, also supported by Attorney General Paxton, to stop illegal and unwanted robocalls and proposes a similar network-blocking mandate for robotexts.
The proposed rule comes at a critical time, with scammers increasingly using text messaging schemes to try to take advantage of consumers. In 2021, the FCC received more than 15,000 consumer complaints about unwanted texts and, in 2020, scammers stole more than $86 million through frauds perpetrated via scam text messages.
The letter states: “State AGs support the FCC’s mandatory blocking requirement as a common-sense measure to protect consumers from scams perpetrated through illegal text messages. State AGs previously supported a similar blocking requirement in the context of voice calls. This was one of the first of many call-blocking measures instituted by the Commission, and it is our hope that the Commission will consider adapting and integrating other similarly successful blocking and mitigation mandates for players in the robotext ecosystem in the near future.”
To read the full comment letter, click here.
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