Raleigh -- July 15, 2026: North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is leading a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from across the country in urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen protections against illegal robocalls by closing a loophole that scammers use to obtain legitimate phone numbers.
According to Attorney General Jackson, many scammers no longer rely primarily on fake caller ID numbers. Instead, they purchase large blocks of legitimate phone numbers and rotate through them so quickly that spam-blocking technology cannot identify and block them before they move on to new numbers.
“These scammers are buying real phone numbers to try to trick you into thinking the calls are real,” Jackson said. “They shouldn’t be able to do that. We’re asking the FCC to cut scammers off at the source and make sure that the people behind these illegal robocalls can’t get real phone numbers in the first place.”
The coalition says the problem remains widespread across the country. Last year, Americans received an estimated 29.6 billion scam robocalls and text messages, resulting in nearly $2 billion in reported financial losses. While federal and state efforts have reduced the use of illegally spoofed caller ID numbers, scammers have increasingly shifted to purchasing legitimate phone numbers, making fraudulent calls appear more authentic and more likely to bypass spam filters.
The attorneys general are asking the FCC to adopt several additional safeguards, including stronger certification requirements for companies authorized to buy and resell North American telephone numbers, mandatory reporting on how those numbers are assigned, and certification from applicants that the numbers will not be used for illegal robocalling activities.
The coalition is also urging the FCC to prevent the sale of phone numbers to entities that are not connected to legitimate calling or texting services, prohibit the practice known as "number cycling," in which scammers rapidly rotate through thousands of phone numbers to avoid detection, and limit the availability of trial phone numbers that are often exploited for fraudulent robocall campaigns.
North Carolina investigators have already documented how serious the problem has become. In one case, scammers placed more than 17.3 million robocalls in a single day through one voice service provider. Rather than repeatedly using the same telephone number, the operation typically used each number only once or twice before switching to another, making it difficult for spam-blocking systems to identify the calls before new numbers were used.
Attorney General Jackson has made robocall enforcement a major consumer protection priority. His office participates in the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which launched Operation Robocall Roundup in August 2025. As part of that effort, warning letters were sent to 37 voice providers demanding stronger action against illegal robocalls traveling across their networks. A second phase later expanded enforcement efforts to four of the nation's largest voice providers.
In addition, Jackson previously secured a court order permanently barring John Spiller, who operated several voice service providers responsible for facilitating tens of millions of illegal robocalls, from working in the telecommunications industry.
The request to the FCC has drawn support from attorneys general representing 49 states and territories, reflecting broad bipartisan agreement that stronger safeguards are needed to reduce illegal robocalls and better protect consumers. If adopted, the proposed FCC rules would make it more difficult for scammers to obtain legitimate phone numbers, improve law enforcement's ability to trace illegal calls, and help reduce the billions of unwanted robocalls Americans receive each year.