The American Bankers Association has joined a chorus of other trade groups, including ACA International, in calling on the Federal Communications Commission to create a “challenge mechanism” that legitimate businesses could use in the event their numbers are blocked by consumers.
In a letter sent to the FCC, Jonathan Thessin, ABA’s Senior Counsel at the Center for Regulatory Compliance, highlighted the problems of several of the association’s members in having their calls blocked by individuals and labeled as scams.
Without going into detail about how it would like the challenge mechanism to work or what it would like to see in a challenge mechanism, ABA’s letter to the FCC is another voice expressing concern that the FCC will not do enough to help legitimate businesses whose phone numbers may be reported as robocalls, whether the report is made accidentally or intentionally.
Many collection agencies have reported their contact rates have dropped because more individuals are reporting the agencies’ phone numbers as robocalls and having the calls blocked from ever reaching their intended recipient.
By handing the power to block calls to the carriers, associations like the ABA and ACA International are worried that there would be a consistent and uniform procedure for working to have blocked phone numbers unblocked. The current process has been described as a nightmare by some in the ARM industry.
