WASHINGTON — Federal lawmakers are demanding major phone companies step up their efforts to shield Americans from fraudulent communications, as part of an expanding probe into how U.S. businesses contribute to a cybercrime wave that drained approximately $200 billion from Americans last year.
“Consumers need to be able to trust that the calls and texts they receive — from their doctor’s office or their child’s school, for example — are authentic. Scam communications, however, are increasingly difficult to distinguish from legitimate messages, and too much of the burden of detection is falling on customers,” Rep. David Schweikert, R.-Ariz., the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D.-N.H., the committee’s ranking member, wrote in a detailed request sent to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile on Wednesday evening.
The lawmakers are requesting details about how these companies gather information, track fraudulent activity and cybercrime, and respond to malicious operators.
This increased oversight reflects mounting alarm in the nation’s capital over the dramatic increase in scams targeting American consumers. Federal legislators have also been examining Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, online dating sites, artificial intelligence companies, data brokers and a range of federal agencies about their roles in and response to cyberscams.
This marks another attempt by Washington to address unwanted calls. Under the 2019 TRACED Act, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission mandated that major carriers deploy caller ID authentication technology to fight caller ID spoofing and make it easier for law enforcement to identify bad actors.
However, the issue continues, exposing Americans to sophisticated international criminal operations.
Mobile carriers prevented 55 billion spam and scam robotexts in 2024 and identify or stop 45 billion fraudulent calls annually, according to industry group CTIA. Yet unwanted communications and calls keep getting through in overwhelming volumes.
Americans were hit with over 50 billion robocalls in 2025, according to YouMail, a robocall blocking company. Spam texts jumped to more than 19 billion monthly in 2024, according to RoboKiller, another anti-spam company. Text messages and phone calls were the first and third most commonly reported ways scammers targeted victims last year, according to Federal Trade Commission data.
Josh Berc, senior vice president of policy at USTelecom, an industry association, said companies work to protect consumers by tracing back scam calls, disrupting illegal activity and supporting government investigations and law enforcement.
“Scam prevention requires a coordinated, inter-industry approach and our sector remains committed to strengthening partnerships that protect consumers,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.
Some telecom companies are seeking to turn anti-scam work from a cost center to a source of revenue, through, for example, premium call-filtering services and branded caller ID, both available for a fee.
Consumer advocates say stronger incentives are needed.
“Companies will not go far enough until they actually do feel some type of liability,” said Eden Iscil, senior public policy manager at the National Consumers League, “Some financial incentive that really pushes them to go as far as they can to protect consumers.”
