Salem, Oregon – Nearly 30 billion scam robocalls and texts reached Americans last year, and the financial damage approached $2 billion. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield says those numbers point to a problem deeper than individual scammers: phone companies that fail to properly examine who is using their networks.
Rayfield has joined a bipartisan coalition of 48 other attorneys general urging the Federal Communications Commission to tighten its robocall rules, close existing loopholes and make providers more accountable for suspicious traffic moving through their systems.
“Oregonians shouldn’t have to treat every unknown call like a threat,” said Attorney General Rayfield.
“Scammers are exploiting gaps in a system that’s supposed to protect people, and some phone companies are letting it happen because it’s profitable to look the other way. If a company profits from routing calls onto our phones, it has a responsibility to know who it’s doing business with, and the FCC needs to hold them to that.”
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Most phone calls travel through several companies before reaching the person being called. Federal rules already require providers to take reasonable steps to determine whether the businesses handing them calls are legitimate. That requirement is sometimes called the “Know Your Upstream Provider,” or KYUP, rule.
The coalition argues that existing safeguards do not go far enough. It wants the FCC to establish clear minimum vetting standards requiring phone companies to obtain and verify information about their business partners, monitor their conduct and cut off companies that fail to follow the rules.
The attorneys general also want providers to conduct regular reviews instead of relying mainly on checks at the beginning or renewal of a business relationship. They are seeking stronger protections against caller ID spoofing, recordkeeping requirements and meaningful penalties for companies that fail to meet the standards.
The push builds on Operation Robocall Roundup, launched in 2025 by the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, which includes Rayfield. During its first phase, the task force warned 37 smaller phone companies accused of failing to stop suspicious or illegal robocalls from crossing their networks.
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More recently, the FCC ordered six of those companies to address their robocall problems or potentially lose their ability to route calls through the U.S. telephone network.
The task force has since expanded its effort to four major companies that route calls between providers while continuing to press federal regulators for stronger verification rules across the industry.
