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TRACED Act: Has It Stopped Robocalls Yet?

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Since signing the TRACED Act into law in 2019, has any progress been made?

In January of 2019 the TRACED Act was introduced in the United States Senate. It’s purpose was to assist voice service providers in combating robocalls, and penalize those that didn’t.

Shortly after the bill was introduced and passed by the Senate, Grand Rapids Tech President Justin Ayers was featured in a local news article called “Robocalls: How can we get rid of them?” In the interview he provided some tips for handling robocalls.

  • Use voicemail to screen calls from unknown numbers
  • Download robocall blocking apps
  • Register your number on the Do Not Call List

TRACED Act In 2020

The TRACED Act was signed into law by the President on December 30, 2019, less than one year after it’s introduction in the Senate. The FCC published their first press release the following February and made a lot of progress throughout the remainder of the 2020 year.

Robocalls saw a significant drop from 2019 to 2020, from ~58.5 billion to ~45.9 billion, almost 22% less. Unfortunately, that’s still more than we saw in 2018 with ~47.8 billion and significantly more than 2017 with only 30.5 billion calls.

TRACED Act in 2021

As of March 2021, America is heading towards the same high numbers it saw in 2019. If this trend continues, I think it’s safe to assume the global pandemic was a larger influence in the decline of calls than the TRACED Act.

The Future

Hopefully the FCC makes substantial progress moving forward to stop call center scams and robocalls throughout the country. When we hear about any significant measurable progress being made, we’ll follow up with a new blog post.

Follow Grand Rapids Tech on social media for more frequent updates.

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