Montana AG Knudson Wants Some Phone Scam-Bustin’

Usually, it's my home phone that attracts the robocalls. But lately, even my cellphone has been targeted. My home "wired" phone gets a swarm of the calls around the noon hour on the weekdays, Montana time. I watch them come in on the answering machine screen and they disconnect usually before my own robo-answering message is complete. We have received a few at the KLYQ studio phones, too. When they realize it is not a private residence...click!...they're gone. It's annoying at how many there are.

Montana's Attorney General Austin Knudsen has joined a coalition of state attorneys general asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to require telephone companies to introduce anti-robocall ID technology called STIR/SHAKEN. The caller ID program helps make sure the calls are coming from a verified phone number, not a "spoofed" number. You know, those are the numbers that appear to be from some Montana town or maybe your own town. He said a 2019 law required the larger companies to have the ID program in place by now, but the small phone companies have until mid-2023. Knudsen wants that deadline moved up.

The requested deadline would be the summer of 2022. It wouldn't completely stop the robocalls, but anything would help. As Knudsen said, in a news release, "While not a silver bullet to end illegal robocalls, complete end-to-end implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework will dramatically reduce the uncertainty and distrust that consumers experience each time they read their caller ID for an incoming call."