U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

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S. HRG. 114–861

RINGING OFF THE HOOK:

EXAMINING THE PROLIFERATION

OF UNWANTED CALLS

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

WASHINGTON, DC

JUNE 10, 2015

Serial No. 114–07

Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
(II) 

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah

MARK KIRK, Illinois

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina

BOB CORKER, Tennessee

DEAN HELLER, Nevada

TOM COTTON, Arkansas

DAVID PERDUE, Georgia

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina

BEN SASSE, Nebraska

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri

BILL NELSON, Florida

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts

TIM KAINE, Virginia

PRISCILLA HANLEY, Majority Staff Director

DERRON PARKS, Minority Staff Director
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening Statement of Senator Susan M. Collins, Chairman .............................. 1 

Opening Statement of Senator Claire McCaskill, Ranking Member ................... 3 

PANEL OF WITNESSES

Linda Blase, Proprietor, Linda Blase Photography and Design, and Recipient

of Spoofed Calls and Robocalls ............................................................................ 5 

Henning Schulzrinne, Levi Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Columbia University .......................................................................... 6 

Lois Greisman, Associate Director, Division of Marketing Practices, Bureau

of Consumer Protection, U.S. Federal Trade Commission ............................... 8 

Joe Dandurand, Deputy Attorney General, State of Missouri ............................. 10 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED WITNESS STATEMENTS

Linda Blase, Proprietor, Linda Blase Photography and Design, and Recipient

of Spoofed Calls and Robocalls ............................................................................ 29 

Henning Schulzrinne, Levi Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Columbia University .......................................................................... 32 

Lois Greisman, Associate Director, Division of Marketing Practices, Bureau

of Consumer Protection, U.S. Federal Trade Commission ............................... 39 

Joe Dandurand, Deputy Attorney General, State of Missouri ............................. 59 

STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD

Exhibit A: Letter from the National Association of Attorneys General, dated

September 9, 2014 ................................................................................................ 69 

Exhibit B: 2015 News Archive Regarding Phone Companies Blocking Telemarketing Calls .................................................................................................... 74 

(1) 

RINGING OFF THE HOOK:

EXAMINING THE PROLIFERATION

OF UNWANTED CALLS

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015

U.S. SENATE,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, 

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:32 p.m., Room 562,

Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M. Collins, Chairman

of the Committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Collins, Heller, Tillis, McCaskill, Casey,

Blumenthal, Donnelly, and Kaine.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR

SUSAN M. COLLINS, CHAIRMAN

The CHAIRMAN. Good afternoon. When Congress passed legislation creating the National Do Not Call Registry in 2003, we

thought we had put an end to the plague of unwelcome telemarketers who were interrupting Americans morning, noon, and

night, but now, nearly 12 years later, phones are once again ringing off the hook. In this hearing, we will look at why Americans

who have signed up for the Do Not Call Registry are still getting

unwanted phone calls and what can be done to stop it.

We will see that a large part of the problem traces to the fact

that the regulatory framework behind the Do Not Call List has

been rendered ineffective by advances in technology. It used to be

that phone calls were routed through equipment that was costly

and complicated to operate. High-volume calling was difficult and

expensive, especially for international calls. That old equipment

could not be used easily to disguise or spoof a caller ID.

Now, phone calls can be routed from anywhere in the world at

practically no cost. This can be done by using so-called Voice over

Internet Protocol technology, or VoIP, and the computer programs

needed to generate these calls are remarkably inexpensive and

easy to use.

Now, reputable telemarketers scrub their calling list against a

data base to make sure that they do not dial numbers belonging

to consumers who have signed up for the Do Not Call List. If you

are on that list, there is a good chance that the telemarketer who

is calling you is not legitimate. Instead, it could well be a scam artist using a computer programmed to generate robocalls. These

robocalls typically originate offshore, often from call centers in

India, but you would not know that fact from looking at your caller
2 

ID, because the scammers spoof their caller ID to add credibility

and hide their true location.

As we learned in our recent hearing on the IRS scam, fraudsters

can even spoof their numbers to make victims believe that they are

calling from the IRS or local law enforcement. When these

unsuspecting victims see the Internal Revenue Service or their

local police department pop up on their caller ID screen, they are

worried, scared, and often easily hustled into doing whatever the

scammers demand.

Simply put, spoofing is very easy, as I will now demonstrate.

[Telephone ringing.]

The CHAIRMAN. My screen is reading, ‘‘Internal Revenue Service,’’ but let us see. Hello, this is Susan Collins. May I ask who is

calling? 

Mr. DEWEY. Hello, Chairman Collins. This is Sam Dewey from

your staff.

The CHAIRMAN. Sam, my phone says that you are calling from

the IRS headquarters number, which is 202–622–5000. Are you

calling from the IRS?

Mr. DEWEY. No, Senator, I am actually over here.

The CHAIRMAN. There you have it. Thank you, Sam.

Here is what the number would look like on a standard landline

phone, where you have the screen where your caller ID shows up.

Now, the IRS, of course, is part of the Department of Treasury.

My staff was able to spoof that number using a free iPhone app

right here in this hearing room, and looking at my phone, I would

have no way of knowing that it was not really the IRS or the Department of Treasury calling me.

Obviously, these fraudsters have no intention of following U.S.

law. In fact, they may use the Do Not Call List as a source of working numbers in their hunt for new victims. If we are going to win

the fight against scammers targeting our seniors, we need to get

ahead of the technology that they use to generate robocalls and to

spoof caller IDs.

[Telephone ringing.]

Let us see who this one is. Hello, this is Susan Collins.

Mr. DEWEY. Hello, Senator Collins. It is Sam Dewey from your

staff again.

The CHAIRMAN. Sam, this is getting old. [Laughter.]

This time, Sam is pretending to be from the Department of Justice, and he has just demonstrated how easy it is to spoof multiple

phone numbers, not just the IRS, the Department of Justice, and

virtually any other official sounding number, and he has also demonstrated just how annoying these repeated calls can be to the consumer, so Sam, I am turning off my ringer now.

This is a serious problem. It would be one thing if the real number were showing up on the hard line ID screen. Then callers

might have some chance of protecting themselves by simply not answering the phone, as we have advised in many of our hearings,

but when you see the IRS or your local police department’s number, or the FBI’s number showing up on your screen, you are going

to answer that call.

I wish that Senator McCaskill were here right now. She will be

coming—— 
3 

Senator MCCASKILL. I am here.

The CHAIRMAN. You managed to miss my very exciting opening

statement, which had two spoofed calls during it.

Senator MCCASKILL. Oh, darn.

The CHAIRMAN. You are here for the praise part of the hearing,

and I do want to salute you for the work that you have done on

the Commerce Committee on this issue and for the legislation that

you have drafted, which I am very pleased to join you in cosponsoring, so before we turn to our witnesses whose testimony I am

very much looking forward to, I now would like to call on our

Ranking Member to deliver her statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, RANKING MEMBER

Senator MCCASKILL. First, my most sincere apologies. You know,

this place is—all my colleagues will attest to the fact that all best

plans get blown up by crises of schedule, so I apologize for being

a few minutes late and I apologize for missing your opening statement.

Thank you so much, Chairman Collins, for holding this hearing.

This is a topic I am very concerned about and, frankly, I think anybody who—and I know the witnesses here from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office can speak to this—if there is one topic that

comes up frequently with Missourians when I am talking to them,

it really is, ‘‘Can you not do anything about the robocalls? I am on

the Do Not Call List. Why can you not get them to stop?’’

I watched my mother get victimized when she thought she was

being called by Medicare and it was really a company called Med

Care that was robocalling her and lying to her about whether or

not they had talked to her doctor.

In our 2013 subcommittee hearing in the Commerce Committee,

we heard about the inability of enforcement agencies to keep up

with this game of whack-a-mole that phone scams have become,

and pleas for help from consumers, that their providers please help

them by offering technologies that will block unwanted and fraudulent calls.

I have been tough on the phone companies, not because they are

causing the problem, but rather because they are in the best position to do something about it. Some innovators have made great

strides in developing call-blocking technologies. However, to my

frustration, industry representatives have continued to insist that

the law does not allow them to do this. That does not work.

I was not the only one seeking clarity here. Missouri’s Attorney

General, Chris Koster, a Democrat, along with Indiana’s Republican Attorney General, spearheaded a letter to the FCC and 37

other Attorneys General signed on. They wanted a formal opinion

that clarified whether what we were hearing from industry was

true, that their hands were tied about their ability to provide callblocking technology based on consumer choice.

I am pleased today that we are joined by Missouri’s Deputy Attorney General, former Judge Joe Dandurand, to explain why giving consumers more power and choice in which calls they receive

is such an important concern for law enforcement nationwide.
4 

I am also pleased that FCC Commissioner Wheeler has heard

concerns coming from Capitol Hill and across the country and recently announced a proposal to be considered at the Commission

later this month that would allow telecommunications providers to

offer consumers technology tools to combat unwanted calls. This

proposal will be voted on next week at the FCC, and I am strongly

encouraging the FCC to adopt Chairman Wheeler’s proposal.

I am grateful that the FCC has used its existing authority to

modernize its rules. However, I also recognize that in some cases,

statutory changes must be made to keep up with rapidly evolving

technology. To that end, this week, I have introduced and am very

pleased to have cosponsorship with the chairman of this Committee, Chairman Collins. We introduced together the Robocall and

Call Spoofing Enforcement Improvement Act. This bill would give

the FCC more enforcement authority, allowing it to go after nonlicensed robocall violators and increasing penalties on them.

One of the other concerns we have heard from our law enforcement agencies is their inability to get at spammers who spoof calls

from overseas. This bill would allow for the FCC to enforce our

spoofing laws against overseas callers who direct their activities to

those living in the United States.

Additionally, the bill would grant the FCC explicit authority to

regulate third-party spoofing services.

We have to stay on top of this issue because spammers, spoofers,

and robocallers will continue to use whatever tools are available to

them to defraud American consumers and America’s seniors. We

must give them the flexibility to fight these fraudsters. The complaints are only increasing. In the last five years alone, the FTC

reports monthly complaints about illegal robocalls have doubled.

In Missouri, as we will hear from Attorney General Dandurand,

the top complaint of residents is unwanted and illegal telemarketing calls. It is not even close. His office gets 50 times the

number of complaints for those calls than it did for the next highest category of complaint.

We can do this. Together, we can do this. I look forward to hearing the testimony from this panel and exploring more ways to help

consumers fight these unwanted calls.

Thank you, and I look forward to all of your testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your statement.

I would note that we have been joined by Senator Heller, Senator

Casey, and Senator Kaine, and I know that others of our colleagues

will be joining us as their schedules permit.

We now turn to our panel of witnesses. First, we will hear from

Linda Blase, a lighting designer and photographer from Dallas,

Texas. She will tell us about the constant barrage of unwanted

telemarketing calls she has received despite registering with the

Do Not Call List.

Second, we will hear from Professor Henning Schulzrinne from

Columbia University in New York. The professor will explain the

technology and describe the work that he is doing with the industry standards setting groups.

Third, we will hear from Ms. Lois Greisman, who is the Associate

Director of the Division of Marketing Practices in the Bureau of

Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission.
5 

Finally, we will hear from Joe Dandurand, who is the Deputy Attorney General in Missouri.

I want to thank all of you for joining us, and we will start with

you, Ms. Blase.

STATEMENT OF LINDA BLASE, PROPRIETOR,

LINDA BLASE PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN, AND

RECIPIENT OF SPOOFED CALLS AND ROBOCALLS

Ms. BLASE. Chairman Collins, Ranking Member McCaskill, and

members of the Committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak for thousands of American citizens who constantly

receive unwanted telephone solicitations.

As a small business owner working out of my home, my phone

number has also found its way to telemarketers who target business. I know there are more critical issues to address in today’s

world, but there are few that affect as many of us on a daily basis

as the barrage of robocalls that constantly interrupt our lives.

In addition to scammers posing as the IRS and the FBI, trying

to steal my savings, I have been bombarded by unwanted and irrelevant sales calls. I have had telemarketers tell me that my credit

card processor is not in compliance with government regulations

and their company needs to come upgrade it immediately, as if I

ever had a credit card processor.

One tried to sell me an ATM. Maybe I could put it in my living

room. 

Several had important information about my credit card account,

adding that there is no problem right now, but this is my last

chance for them to lower my interest rate. If only that were true.

I have been getting these calls for years, and then there is the man

who starts out with, ‘‘Hello, seniors,’’ and then tries to sell me a

device that calls for help if I fall. Oh, and by the way, someone has

already paid to set it up for me, about a dozen times.

These are just a few examples of the calls we are all getting

every day.

When the Do Not Call List was established, I immediately registered my phone number, but it soon became clear that it made

no difference to these people. All they had to do was change a number or spoof one to hide their identities and evade prosecution, and

that is assuming anyone was even willing to invest the time and

energy required to do so, and with the proliferation of robocalls, it

got even worse. If you actually speak to a human being and ask

where the company got your phone number, if they do not hang up

immediately, they will tell you they have no idea. They just get on

the line after the computer has dialed your number and you answer the phone, and since toll free numbers apparently are not

public record, telemarketers can hide their identities that way.

I am reminded of the Borg mantra on Star Trek. Resistance is

futile. There are too many ways these unethical people can invade

our homes incessantly and with impunity, day in and day out.

If you answer these calls or press one to speak to a sales rep,

or press two to be taken off their list, you are just making matters

worse. You have effectively told a computer that it has reached a

working number. It also knows that you will answer calls from

numbers you do not recognize, so not only will it continue to call
6 

you, your number may go on a list of targeted numbers which can

be sold and resold many times to a multitude of telemarketers,

robocallers, and scammers, so you have very few options. You can

do a quick pick-up and hang-up without saying a word, or you cannot answer, giving the call a chance to go to voice mail, where you

have to spend the time to retrieve and delete the number. You can

report the numbers to the FCC using a detailed and time consuming online form, which I have done several times, or you can

go to a consumer-driven website that collects complaints from others who are also tearing their hair out over these calls. It is all an

exercise in futility.

In search of a solution to the problem, I agreed to participate in

a Consumers Union campaign against unwanted robocalls. I found

that while call blockers can be useful straight out of the box, their

effectiveness is limited, and to be fully functional may require additional and sometimes complicated programming, and my aging

brain is looking for more simplicity, not more complication.

It would be so much simpler if the phone companies could just

block calls from their telemarketing clients to all numbers on the

Do Not Call List, or to provide free robocall blocking tools to their

residential and business customers, or both.

As far as I am concerned, these calls are unwanted intrusions

into my home, and scammers prey disproportionately on our elderly

citizens. Why should telemarketers be exempt from regulations

similar to the common requirement for door-to-door salespersons to

skip homes with a ‘‘No Solicitors’’ sign posted near the door? We

need a similar mechanism for these unwanted phone calls. The National Do Not Call Registry was supposed to do this, but the technology used by the robocallers has made enforcement nearly impossible.

I believe the telephone companies have the ability to do more in

this area and that they should do so. We are certainly paying

enough for their services. It is time for us all to take a good look

at this issue and work together to stop or at least sharply decrease

the number of these unwanted and fraudulent calls.

Thank you for your time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony. When

we get to questions, I am going to ask you about the robocall log

that you kept for a month. I think it is very illuminating, the dozens of calls that you received and the variety of them.

Professor, we look forward to hearing from you next.

STATEMENT OF HENNING SCHULZRINNE, LEVI

PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ELECTRICAL

ENGINEERING, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. Thank you. Chairman Collins, Ranking Member McCaskill, and members of the Committee, thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Henning

Schulzrinne and I am the Levi Professor of Computer Science and

Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York. I was

the Chief Technology at the FCC from 2012 to 2014 and currently

serve as a technology advisor to the FCC. I am pleased to join you

to discuss technology issues and potential solutions surrounding

robocalls and number spoofing. The views I express today are my

own and do not necessarily reflect those of the FCC.
7 

Illegal and more general unwanted robocalls come in many flavors. We heard a few of those described in great detail already. All

are annoying. Some are harassing, threatening, or deceptive. Beyond the well-known IRS and tech support scams, similar technology also facilitates swatting, that is, false 911 calls claiming a

crime in progress, or telephony denial of service attacks that interfere with the operation of nursing homes, hospitals, and other institutions.

All of these, as distinct as they may seem, leverage the same

three enablers: Cheap and anonymous international phone calls, as

you mentioned; easy spoofing of a telephone number, whether it

looks like a real number, like the IRS, or a law enforcement agency, or even complete nonexisting numbers that are used simply to

obfuscate the origin; and fake or misleading caller name information.

Fortunately, while new technologies have enabled the scourge of

unwanted calls, emerging technologies can also help reduce and, I

hope, eventually eliminate these calls. In my written testimony, I

describe eight tools that are being developed. They are, however,

reliant on three key concepts that I will outline now.

First, we need to make caller ID information trustworthy again.

Second, we need to provide traceable and reliable caller name information, and third, we need to let consumers and businesses decide which calls they want to receive and which ones they do not.

These techniques, as different as they seem, attack unwanted

calls by making it harder and more expensive for fraudulent callers

to reach their marks and make it easier for enforcement authorities, such as the FCC and FTC and the State Attorney Generals,

to locate and shut down these operations.

Let me start on the first topic. First, to ensure that only entities

authorized to use a telephone number can place calls using that

number, the STIR working group within the Internet Engineering

Task Force, known as IETF, is finishing up a set of specifications

that allow legitimate originators of calls to cryptographically sign

call set-up messages. I am helping that working group, as well.

The technology is very similar to what is currently used to sign

websites that are used by, for example, banks or other financial institutions. These techniques can be implemented as Voice over IP

calls reach traditional phone networks, and thus, they can protect

legacy networks even though we may not be able to upgrade those

technologies themselves. Thus, they are able to protect both

landline and mobile subscribers from fake caller ID information.

However, I believe that even before we can implement cryptographic validation on a large scale, we can prevent the spoofing

of numbers used by the kind of institutions mentioned—by banks,

government offices such as the IRS, and social service agencies. I

have called this approach the ‘‘Do Not Originate List,’’ as a rough

equivalent to the Do Not Call Lists. Organizations who are likely

to be impersonated by fraudsters would provide their numbers to

operators of Voice over IP gateways, letting them know that no legitimate call would use those numbers. Gateway operators can

then either remove or translate the bogus caller ID information.

For example, all such calls with fake caller ID may then appear as

area code 666.
8 

Second, Voice over IP technology allows making caller name information more reliable, as we no longer have to rely on a very

short string derived from a third-party data base which can, indeed, be substituted with a similar looking name. A new working

group within the same standardization organization has been proposed to modernize the delivery of caller name information.

Third, and importantly, consumers and businesses need the technical ability to decide which calls to receive. They may either want

a black list or white list. A black list designates numbers to be

blocked, redirected to voice mail, or subject to a ‘‘are you human’’

test. These would be derived, for example, through crowdsourcing.

A white list allows only certain numbers to reach, say, vulnerable

individuals, while other calls are either blocked or forwarded to a

family member or other trusted third parties.

Importantly, such black lists and white lists can be implemented

either by telephone providers themselves, or, if those providers cooperate, by making it possible by consumers’ chosen third parties

to vet phone calls, and these third parties can then compete on who

does the best job of filtering out unwanted calls. This does, however, require that phone companies provide the suitable interfaces

to do that.

I appreciate your interest in this topic and I look forward to your

questions on the technology. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Professor. I very much appreciate your testimony.

Ms. Greisman.

STATEMENT OF LOIS GREISMAN, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,

DIVISION OF MARKETING PRACTICES, BUREAU OF

CONSUMER PROTECTION, U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

Ms. GREISMAN. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairman

Collins, Ranking Member McCaskill, and members of the Committee. I am delighted to appear before you to discuss the FTC’s

work to fight illegal robocalls. I am also very pleased to be sitting

next to Professor Schulzrinne, who has been a vital partner at the

FTC—excuse me, at the FCC—with us.

Tackling robocalls and curbing any unwanted telemarketing, particularly calls that target seniors, is a top priority for the FTC.

Eleven years ago, the Commission established the Do Not Call Registry to create an easy-to-use tool for consumers to protect their

privacy against unwanted calls. I do believe that program has been

highly effective in reducing calls from legitimate telemarketers.

Several years ago, as you referred to, Chairman Collins, the

landscape started to shift in a very troubling way. Robocalls were

on the rise. In 2009, the FTC received just a little more than

60,000 complaints about robocalls each month. Currently, we get

approximately 150,000 complaints each month, a dramatic increase, so what happened?

Major technological changes in telecommunications services have

led to lower costs and improved services for consumers. That is

good news, but unfortunately, fraudsters also have taken advantage of these same lower costs which brought faster and cheaper

automated dialing platforms. Fraudsters, as we have heard already, have also further exploited caller ID spoofing, which induces
9 

the consumer to pick up the phone while enabling the scammer to

hide anywhere in the world, hide its identity and location. In short,

bad actors have taken advantage of this relatively cheap and scalable business model and used it to blast literally tens of millions

of robocalls, illegal robocalls, over the course of one day at a cost

of less than one cent per call.

It is bad enough that these robocalls invade consumers’ privacy

and are illegal. Coupled with the illegal privacy invasion, however,

we all too often see that the robocallers pitch goods and services

riddled with fraud.

The FTC continues to step up its law enforcement initiatives. For

example, we have shut down a major robocall operation that ripped

off seniors by telling them they were eligible to receive a free medical alert system bought for them by a family member or friend.

Seniors who pressed one on a phone were transferred to a live operator, who said the medical alert device was approved by the

American Heart Association or the American Diabetes Association.

We allege those claims to be false. I think that is precisely the type

of robocall that Ms. Blase referred to earlier, and I note that the

State of Florida was a co-plaintiff in that case.

In another recent case filed with ten State Attorneys General, including Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, and again, Florida, the

FTC sued the telemarketer, the lead generator that provided the

names, the telephone numbers, and also the companies that helped

the telemarketer spoof its caller ID to hide its identity. These entities were responsible for blasting billions of robocalls attempting to

sell a cruise to the Bahamas.

I do believe our coordination with State, Federal, and international partners is as strong as ever. As you know, while the FTC

has no criminal enforcement authority, I am very happy to report

that some of the individuals sued by the FTC for placing illegal

robocalls have been prosecuted criminally by the Department of

Justice. 

Still, we know law enforcement is not enough. We have committed to stimulating technological solutions by issuing no less

than four challenges, challenging entrepreneurs to develop solutions, such as robocall blocking services that will zap ‘‘Rachel from

cardholder services’’ before she can invade our privacy and spew

her lies. Our fourth contest takes place in August. It is entitled,

‘‘Robocalls: Humanity Strikes Back.’’ I think that title says it all.

We think these contests have been very successful, as attested to

by the fact that one of our winners of the very first contest brought

his product, ‘‘Nomorobo,’’ to the marketplace just six months after

winning. Nomorobo now has 170,000 subscribers and reports to

have blocked 24 million calls.

With these challenges, and as detailed in the testimony, the FTC

plays a leadership role to stimulate ongoing robust dialog with

technical experts, academics, and industry groups, and I do want

to underscore that our work is international in scope. In fact, members of the London Action Plan and the Voice and Telephony Abuse

Special Interest Group are meeting in Dublin, Ireland, as we speak

to tackle the consumer protection issues robocalls present.

Finally, I want to assure you of our ongoing and sustained commitment to protect consumer privacy and halt telemarketing fraud
10 

by enforcing the Do Not Call Registry and by tackling illegal

robocalls. 

I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. Dandurand.

STATEMENT OF JOE DANDURAND, DEPUTY

ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF MISSOURI

Mr. DANDURAND. I take this opportunity on behalf of Attorney

General Chris Koster to thank Chairman Senator Collins and my

friend and Ranking Committee Member Senator Claire McCaskill

and the Committee for inviting us here this afternoon, and going

last, I apologize ahead of time for being a bit redundant. We have

heard a lot of these things before.

The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a division dedicated

entirely to responding to complaints from Missouri consumers. The

Consumer Protection Division receives complaints about a wide variety of scams and frauds, such as illegal debt collecting practices

and identity theft. However, the number one complaint by Missourians, as Senator McCaskill indicated, by a significant margin, is

about unwanted and illegal telemarketing calls.

In 2014, the vast majority of complaints our office received—of

the well over 52,000 calls we received—were about illegal telemarketing. The next highest category of complaint was 1,200, just

under 1,200.

As in most states Missouri’s No Call allows individuals who do

not want to be called by telemarketers to register both their residential and their cell phone numbers on the No Call List.

Every day, our No Call Unit receives complaints from people,

many of whom are seniors, who have been abused or harassed by

telemarketers who have no respect for the law or the privacy of

those whom they victimize. Last month, our office received a complaint from an 80-year-old woman in St. Louis. She had received

a call from someone telling her that she is eligible for a back brace

paid for by Medicare. The caller was able to get the woman’s Medicare identification number, which is her Social Security number

and her date of birth. After hanging up the phone, she quickly realized that something was not right with that call and she notified

our office.

We also frequently receive complaints about robocalls, many of

which specifically target seniors. For example, one recorded message making the rounds informs the senior consumer that he or

she is eligible for a free medical alert bracelet if the senior will

simply provide their identifying information.

While some technologies, such as caller ID, help address unwanted calls, even then, technologies may be exploited. For example, caller ID spoofing happens when a caller deliberately falsifies

the name and telephone number appearing on the caller ID information to disguise the caller’s true identity, as you have seen Senator Collins be victimized here before we started today.

One of the most frequent spoofing complaints our office receives

from seniors is that their caller ID relays the letters ‘‘SSI’’ as the

caller’s identity. The seniors believe, of course, the call is coming

from the Social Security Administration. However, upon answering
11 

the call, the consumer is immediately asked survey questions designed to illicit personal information.

Our office is also fighting back in the courtroom. In 2014, we obtained more than $600,000 in judgments penalizing telemarketers

for their illegal conduct, and significantly, our office also obtained

court orders permanently prohibiting 28 telemarketers from ever

placing another call into the State of Missouri, but they are clever

and they are relentless.

Unfortunately, as Senator McCaskill told us a minute ago, it

often becomes as frustrating as the old arcade game whack-a-mole.

We shut them down and they pop up again in other states or with

different identities. Many have resorted to setting up shop and

making calls from overseas locations, effectively nullifying our ability to obtain enforcement jurisdiction over them.

This is a battle, however, which must be fought on many fronts.

We need the help of private industry, including the telephone service providers, to help create solutions to help deter unwanted telemarketing calls.

Already, as you know, technologies exist to reduce the number of

robocalls to consumers’ phones. These, ‘‘call blockers’’ filter incoming telemarketing calls before they reach the consumers’ phones,

thus dramatically reducing the number of unwanted calls a person

receives. 

Yet, major phone carriers have resisted allowing the customers

to have access to these call blocking technologies, claiming that

Federal law prohibits it. To quite from a U.S. telecom rep at a July

10, 2013 Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection hearing,

‘‘The current legal framework simply does not allow phone companies to decide for the consumer which calls should be allowed to go

through and which calls should be blocked.’’

If so, then that should be changed. If that is the only thing stopping them, then by all means, we should clarify the law and give

them such power. That is why last fall, Missouri Attorney General

Chris Koster and Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, with

whom Senator Donnelly is certainly friends, joined by the 37 other

Attorneys General that Senator McCaskill referenced before,

penned and submitted a letter to the FCC, which is attached to my

testimony as Exhibit A.

We are thankful and encouraged by the fact that FCC Chairman

Wheeler agrees. In response to the letter, Chairman Wheeler submitted a proposal to protect Americans from unwanted robocalls,

spam text messages, and telemarketing calls, and it looks like the

FCC will, in fact, provide clarity on the issue based on Chairman

Wheeler’s request. They are going to vote at the Commission’s open

meeting on June 18th.

Our office is encouraged by the progress we have made, but we

recognize the continuing challenges that need to be addressed. Consumers have made it clear that they are fed up with the number

of unwanted telemarketing calls they receive. We must continue to

research and employ newer technologies to help in our efforts to

keep up with the illegal robocallers. The telephone carriers are in

the unique position to help their own customers block these calls.

Once the major carriers are on board, we can truly make a dif-
12 

ference in the lives of consumers by giving them the power to stop

the illegal telemarketing phone calls at their inception.

While we do not share the industry’s interpretation of the existing rule of law, to the extent that there is any ambiguity regarding

the phone companies’ legal authority to honor its customers’ requests that they block these unwanted calls before they arrive, we

would request clarity on that issue.

Thank you again for the opportunity to briefly testify here today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony, as

well. 

Ms. Blase, as I mentioned, you kept a robocall log that you

shared with the Committee. It is extraordinary how many calls

that you received. You were very precise about listing all of them,

and that in many cases, you would get repeat calls. You would

hang up and the person would call back again.

I am curious whether you felt when you did answer some of

these calls that the individuals had information about you that

made the call more convincing and might be more persuasive to an

individual who is less sophisticated than you are in dealing with

these calls.

Ms. BLASE. Chairman Collins, the only time that I felt like they

had information about me specifically was the business calls, because they got information somewhere that I have a business, so

they assume I take credit cards, and they assume that I would

have an ATM or would want to buy one for my business. I can only

suspect that it came from the Sales and Use Tax Permit that I

have to have in order to run my business or from a directory that

is put out—a business directory that is put out.

In fact, I have had a lot of trouble with that business directory

sending me things every year saying, if you do not return this information confirming who you are or what you do or what you sell,

we are going to have to drop you from the list, so I say, hooray,

drop it, but every year, I get the same one, and they describe my

business as something that it is nothing like, so I suspect that they

are getting my number from that business list, which, I suspect,

got it from the State, but I do not know that.

The CHAIRMAN. Since not everyone has seen the call log that you

put together over a month’s time, could you describe in a little bit

of detail the number of calls you received and the type of calls.

Ms. BLASE. Oh, gee. It is a big, long list, something like 74 calls.

I put that in my written testimony, but I did not count this up, and

since I sent this to you, that same caller that called five times in

one day when I did not answer has called me back another couple

of times.

The CHAIRMAN. This was just in a month’s time.

Ms. BLASE. Yes. This is just one month’s time. I started keeping

this log on the 5th of May.

The CHAIRMAN. And you are, I assume, registered on the Do Not

Call List.

Ms. BLASE. Oh, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. So you got more than 70 calls——

Ms. BLASE. Right.

The CHAIRMAN. [continuing]. in a month’s time——

Ms. BLASE. Yes.
13 

The CHAIRMAN. [continuing]. despite being on the list, which says

something about the efficacy of the Do Not Call List.

Professor, I understand that some commercial carriers are hesitant to offer robocall filters because of a concern that they cannot

legally block a call under their common carrier obligations, and as

has been discussed today, the FCC Chairman has released a proposal intended to clarify this legal issue—I gather there is dispute

over the legal issue—and made clear that robocall filters are legal,

so in the event that the FCC accepts the Chairman’s proposal, are

there robocall filters that are available now for consumers that

could be put in place immediately by commercial carriers, by the

telephone companies, to help protect consumers?

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. Chairman Collins, there are three types of solutions that could be deployed either immediately or within a matter of months or short of a year. One, which was already mentioned, are third-party services that essentially rely on a specific

feature called simultaneous ringing that some phone systems provide, and this is where Nomorobo solution, that allow the consumer

to filter calls. That solution currently is only applicable to more

modern phone systems, typically provided by the cable companies,

Voice over IP companies, or some of the fiber-based phone services

by the traditional phone companies.

The second one which I see as particularly promising is that the

phone companies would provide external interfaces, so-called APIs,

Application Programming Interfaces, which would allow third parties to decide on consumers’ behalf and chosen by the consumer

which calls to either block, redirect, or redirect to some third party,

for example.

The third type of solution I mentioned would be apps that you

could install on your phone, on your smart phone, that would block

it. Currently, these apps exist, but because they have to work a little bit on the side, they are not really well integrated into the existing phone devices, they do not work all that well, so with the cooperation of carriers, these type of downloadable apps could work

much better than they do today.

Just to add, the fourth one, again, is I believe that the kind of

wholesale prevention of number spoofing could also make the job

of enforcement much easier because it would become much more

difficult for illegal telemarketers to spoof, for example, non-existing

numbers, which is quite common today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and I think the point is the technology does exist for us to deal with this problem.

Senator McCaskill.

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Collins.

Professor, is there any law that we need for the encryption to assure the validity of a caller ID? Can that be done now without any

kind of change in Federal law?

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. I am not a lawyer, so—but, my sense is that

adding cybersecurity—and this is an example of that—to technology does not generally require additional legal authorization,

just like banks did not need to ask for the permission of the FDIC

or of the Controller of the Currency to add protection to their bank

websites. Indeed, longer term, I think we need to reverse the discussion, namely, what obligations do various participants have——
14 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE [continuing]. to protect it——

Senator MCCASKILL. Right.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE [continuing]. that information.

Senator MCCASKILL. I think that—I will followup with the FCC

and make sure, but I am hoping that along with the clarification,

that there is no barrier to the common carriers’ efforts to help consumers block this call, that they would also do what they can to

encourage this encryption possibility, because I think it is a twofold

problem. One is making sure the caller ID is who it says it is, and

two, being able to block the calls.

Deputy Attorney General, I know your office has done great work

in this area, and I know you have banned 28 telemarketers, but I

am, as you know, I am an old prosecutor. Are we not going to have

to start putting some people in jail? I mean, the people that are

doing this, the reason it is whack-a-mole is because they do not

fear any authority at this point. They are fearless of authorities.

If we began picking off—and I know that is it likely that we are

going to get U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to get all in on this? I am painfully aware of the limitations of your office in terms of criminal

prosecutions, but are there laws in Missouri that you think currently would allow you to put some of these people in prison?

Mr. DANDURAND. I do not think we have laws that give the Attorney General’s Office initial——

Senator MCCASKILL. What about local prosecutors? Do they have

it? 

Mr. DANDURAND [continuing]. jurisdiction over those.

Senator MCCASKILL. Would they have local—I am trying to think

what they could be—I guess they could be prosecuted under stealing by deceit.

Mr. DANDURAND. They could, and there——

Senator MCCASKILL. Or attempted stealing by deceit.

Mr. DANDURAND [continuing]. the consumer protection laws are

there, so if it is a criminal violation of consumer protection, if you

can prove their intent, rather than a simple violation but intent to

scam, which makes it more difficult, those are available, but right

now, it is difficult. The feds have been helpful in that regard and

there are multi-State efforts to criminally prosecute folks, so they

actually are—DOJ is assisting in that regard, but we are fairly well

handicapped without additional criminal jurisdiction, and as you

know, that is very hard to come by, the authority.

Senator MCCASKILL. Yes, and I am not even saying I am for that,

but I am saying that we might want to look at what State statutes

can be utilized and what communication you have with local prosecutors to help facilitate them bringing these cases. I do think the

more people that are criminally prosecuted here, the more quickly

you are going to clean some of this up.

Let me ask you this. Does it work when you ban these 28 telemarketers? Do they stay out? Have you caught them coming back

after you have banned them?

Mr. DANDURAND. We have not caught the same named persons

twice or the same named companies twice, but we certainly believe

that they changed the name of the outfit and moved somewhere

else, or just what they do, they network from State to State until
15 

they get barred in another State, then continue to do this, so that

whack-a-mole theory is just truly, truly difficult to get a grip on.

Senator MCCASKILL. What about cooperation from the common

carriers? Ms. Greisman, you were at our hearing in 2013 and you

know that—I mean, I do not get this, candidly. I think right now,

if any carrier in this country came out with an ad campaign, forget

about cut your bill in half, forget about ‘‘Can you hear me,’’ forget

about look at my network and how good it is, if they came out with

an ad, we are going to block robocalls, I mean, I do not think they

could handle the business they would get, and I do not get why

they have been dragging their feet and why it is going to take the

FCC clarifying that this is not a problem.

Do you believe if the FCC votes the way we hope they are going

to vote tomorrow that we will see a land rush of carriers coming

to the forefront, saying, yes, we will offer this service to our customers, because Primus in Canada does it now to their customers

at no charge.

Ms. GREISMAN. Well, I would like to be cautiously optimistic, but

not hold my breath on it. For years now, as you know, we have informally been urging carriers to do just that, citing Primus as a

perfect model. The FTC formally commented on the FCC’s proceeding, expressing its view that there is no legal impediment to

providing a service that carrier subscribers are desperately asking

for. We are eager to work with them, and they do participate in the

various working groups that we have referred to, and again, I

would like to be optimistic.

Senator MCCASKILL. Usually, American companies are so smart

about marketing. I do not get why all their marketers are so dumb

on this. It is just amazing to me. Thank you.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. One reason, I believe, is that it is often sold

as part of a bundle as opposed to a stand-alone service. Most people

now get their voice service as part of a broadband, video, and voice

bundle as opposed to——

Senator MCCASKILL. They do not think it is going to let them—

I do not think they realize, we have got choices on bundles. I have

got two or three places I can go for a bundle. I would much rather

go for the bundle when they are going to block these robocalls, I

will guarantee you that, and I bet the vast majority of Americans

agree with me.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Heller—no, Senator Heller has left.

Senator Tillis.

Senator TILLIS. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member.

I have just gotten a copy of a bill I think you are going to be putting forward in terms of the Robocall and Call Spoofing Enforcement Improvement Act. I think there is some good thinking in

there. I look forward to speaking with you about it.

I wanted to continue the line of questioning about the reason

why some of the common carriers would not be motivated to do it.

It would seem to me that, again, it is a product differentiation, so

then, it raises the question, is there some other economic value to

these calls going through? Do any of you care to speak on that?

Professor. 
16 

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. I can—the economic value differs greatly between carriers. That are usually so-called termination charges or—

but my sense, not being a carrier business person, is that the

amount of money they would get for termination charges is de

minimis, particularly for the largest carriers. Most of the access

charges are paid to small rural carriers, for good reasons, but they

are not the ones complaining about inability to block, so large carriers get very little, particularly because they symmetrically exchange traffic with each other, so I have a hard time believing that

it is simply a lost revenue one.

What I have heard informally from engineers is that, often, the

voice technology that is being deployed is not seen as a revenue

producing opportunity. It is essentially a must-offer technology.

You have to offer voice, just like a cable company offers e-mail

service, but they do not differentiate based on that, and so they

seem very reluctant, in some cases, to invest resources into improving the technology they have.

Senator TILLIS. Yes, and Professor, I wanted to ask you some

questions about the technology. You were talking about, I think,

some of the emerging technologies for Voice over IP. It is very easy

to see with the simultaneous ring, I know how that works, with the

VOIP providers and how the APIs could be used and that underlying technology, or even with the cell technology.

Then, there is still this area out there with the older exchanges,

non-IP based, that even if we make headway in the IP infrastructure, Voice over IP, then it seems like some of the more vulnerable

areas are going to be rural, they are going to be almost disproportionately have more aged populations, the folks who still have the

traditional exchanges, so what sort of technology options are there

for those sorts of residences that are still in—or two generations

behind, arguably, most of the telephony that younger people or people in urban areas use?

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. Senator, as the Chairman pointed out, most

of these illegal or non-wanted robocalls, I would say, almost all of

them originate in Voice over IP, and so they——

Senator TILLIS. They can originate there, but they could ultimately end up at a private exchange.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. Exactly.

Senator TILLIS. That is what I was referring to.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. What happens is there is always a gateway

between those two worlds, the legacy world, if you like, the TDM

world, as it is called, and the Voice over IP world, so those gateway

providers are in a unique position to do exactly that filtering. They

have modern, software-controlled equipment——

Senator TILLIS. At a point of entry.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE [continuing]. at the point of entry.

Senator TILLIS. What sense do you have in terms of the cost to

implement—I understand what you are talking about, because it is

more or less the gateway between the IP originated call and the

traditional teleco exchange. What sorts of technologies exist out

there today, and in rough order of magnitude, what kind of costs

are we talking about?

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. Again, I am not an equipment vendor, so I do

not want to speculate too much, but generally speaking, these de-
17 

vices that are interfacing between these two walls are called session border controllers and they are designed to be highly programmable, so they already have interfaces for other purposes, such as

billing, other fraud control measures that they take to prevent toll

fraud, to do that, so my sense is that with existing deployed gateway technology, it requires not adding hardware but adding additional software functionality that is well within the realm of feasibility.

Senator TILLIS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Kaine.

Senator KAINE. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thanks to

all the witnesses for being here today and your testimony.

I just noticed that earlier today it was announced that the House

appropriations bill was released and it proposes for the FCC in Fiscal Year 2016 a $315 million budget, which is a $25 million cut

below Fiscal Year 2015, and $73 billion below the President’s submitted Fiscal Year 2016 budget request. We have got a lot of budget issues, but this is an issue that demands vigorous FCC enforcement, and at the very time when we need it for this challenge and

other challenges, dramatically reducing the FCC’s budget seems

unwise to me. That is a personal opinion.

I want to talk about the issue of sort of consumer education. I

would assume that that has got to be a key part of this. There is

the enforcement strategies, there is the technical approaches to

solving the problem, but also on the consumer education side.

Ms. Blase, I am a little bit interested in your testimony. You

know, you started to get this log because you knew that these calls

were scams. What is the best way to get information out to seniors

or others who might be vulnerable to scams, and what is the best

advice that we should be giving them? Is it just do not do telephone

solicitations? I hear my wife all the time say, ‘‘I do not do solicitation by phone,’’ click. What is the best advice, but then what are

the best channels through which to get advice to people, in your

view? 

Ms. BLASE. I would say the best advice is to just not answer the

calls. If you answer the calls, you are giving them more information

than you want them to have. If you do not answer the calls, they

eventually will stop calling you, but then they will change. They

will get a new number, they will try again, and they will think that

maybe this time you will answer the call, so I think that is the best

thing that you can do, is just not answer it.

You can get some of these robocall devices, blocking devices. You

can use Nomorobo, but those things have to be programmed. You

have to say, do not answer this number from this caller ID, and

then when they change, which they do, then you start all over, so

it is—I hate to say it again—it is whack-a-mole. It is totally whacka-mole. There is one company that keeps calling that is associated

with five different companies with a bunch of different phone numbers and you cannot chop off all those heads.

Senator KAINE. Mm-hmm.

Ms. BLASE. You know, they just go from one to the other, to the

other, to the other, to the other and there is nothing you can do

about it.
18 

Senator KAINE. How about to my enforcement community experts? What is your thought about the advice we should be giving?

One of the things that this Committee, I think, does very well is

that we have a website. We put up information. We have a hotline

for complaints. We try to use these hearings as a way to give people advice. Here is what you should do, so what is your general

thought about the best advice that we should be giving to people?

Mr. DANDURAND. We have the very same information on our

website and we do consumer education and awareness across the

State, and another piece of advice is, it is not going to be do not

answer the phone, it is this. If you answer the phone and there is

any hesitation, then hang it up, because that often is what you will

get. You say, ‘‘Hello,’’ and it will be dead silence until the robocall

kicks in.

The problem I see, and that is why we need the help with the

blockers at its inception, is that my father will be 85 next month.

He tells me, ‘‘Nobody ever calls me.’’ I do not care for so many of

those folks what we tell them or how often we tell them. If the

phone rings, they are going to answer the phone and they are

thrilled to talk to anybody, so we need more help than consumer

education, which we beat the drum daily on, but the question is a

good one.

Senator KAINE. Please, Ms. Greisman.

Ms. GREISMAN. Consumer education is a critical component of

our law enforcement work and policy work. Our consumer ed message is pretty clear and it is generally consistent with what you

have heard. If you pick up the phone and it is a robocaller and you

do not know who it is, hang up. Do not press one, do not press two,

just hang up the phone, and we disseminate that message loudly,

broadly, through the AARP, through Consumer Federation of

America, Consumers Union. We have tremendous outreach with

our educational initiatives.

Senator KAINE. Then, Ms. Blase, back to you, so had you received

consumer—you know, when you started to do the log and everything, was that just because of your own kind of innate, you were

just mad at these folks, or you were suspicious, or had you—I am

curious, had you received consumer education enough to know, yes,

these are scams and I need to keep a record of them?

Ms. BLASE. Well, I was annoyed beyond belief and had kept just

a little written thing saying, okay, this one did this, this one did

that, just kept it on a piece of paper, sometimes sticky notes in my

drawer, but then when Consumers Union decided to really take

this on, they asked people to start keeping a log, so I changed my

format from scribbling stuff down to actually making this log and

did it because that is what they asked to do.

There were several places where—there were several requirements for this, where you log them, then you use a robocaller, then

you turn off the robocaller and you log them again so that you can

see if the robocaller—the blocker—if that made any difference, so

I was mostly following their instructions on what to do, but then

my attention to detail probably got out of hand and I kept a whole

lot more information than I needed to.

I would like to make a correction from my further answer to your

question. I went back and looked at my testimony, my written tes-
19 

timony. The 74 calls were the number of calls that I got. Sixty-two

of those calls—it was less than that before, when I sent you the log.

Adding the ones that got back, 62 of those were robocalls that were

not charities. Those were actual telemarketing or scam calls, so it

was 62 out of 74 were horrible things.

I even kept—to answer some of the other questions—I even kept

carrier locations from some of these to see if I could find some kind

of a pattern, but I could not. They are all over the map.

Senator KAINE. You have an interesting story, because you kind

of combined the robocalls that might be directed toward seniors

with the robocalls that are directed to businesses, and you are running a business out of your house. You are not going to be that successful in your business if you just do not answer the phone, so you

have got to answer the phone. Have you had conversations with

other business owners about this, other small business owners, and

are they experiencing the same thing, because we are kind of talking about two different kinds of scam calls and I am wondering

how constant it is on the business side, especially with small businesses.

Ms. BLASE. I have not talked to people, but I have gone online

and looked at testimonials from business people and it is all over.

Senator KAINE. Okay.

Ms. BLASE. They are all—these people call my business three

times a day. I get this call five times a week. I tell them to stop

calling and they keep calling, so it is pretty much rampant that it

is across the board, you know.

Oh, and one more thing about people having some information.

Of course, the one trying to sell the little bracelet, where it starts,

‘‘Hello, seniors,’’ well, he had enough information to know that I am

a senior, so——

Senator KAINE. I forgot I was on a clock. I was so interested in

the questions, I ran way over. Sorry, Madam Chair. Thank you all.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator DONNELLY. You are the one who can complain to your

colleague. I am going to give him a pass today, is what I am going

to do.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I am not going to.

Senator DONNELLY. Well, you are like that, Richard.

Thank you all for being here, and this is for Mr. Dandurand, the

first question. In your written testimony, you cite an example of a

complaint from an 80-year-old woman from St. Louis, our Ranking

Member’s State, who received an unwanted call for a back brace

paid for by Medicare. We have heard about these calls from seniors’

organizations, physicians, from folks in Indiana who have been on

the receiving end of harassing phone calls from medical equipment

suppliers offering medical equipment like back braces that they

neither want nor need, and the suppliers use aggressive tactics to

persuade seniors into ordering unnecessary items at Medicare’s expense. We have an obligation to protect the privacy seniors have

and also to protect taxpayer dollars.

Can you talk more, or a little bit more, you know, in your position as Deputy Attorney General, about the trends you are seeing

in regards to calls like these.
20 

Mr. DANDURAND. I would, and to sort of talk about what Senator

Kaine said, and Senator McCaskill, as well, funding is a big problem, and if we are going to cut funding for enforcement, we are

going to have more of a problem. Our office operates on 15 percent

less than we did when we started in 2009, but when we increased

the ability to register your cell phones, we increased the number

of phones we are responsible for from two million to four million

with no more folks to deal with it, so they know that.

The trends are just, I think, somewhat, Senator Collins, away

from landlines toward cell phones now that they are getting this

figured out, how to get to these cell phones, and it is going to

mushroom and mushroom, because so far, we still get a lot of complaints, more complaints, really, from the folks that are registered

landlines, so the trends are they are getting ahead of technology

and they are really working on people’s cell phones, even with the

sophistication those cell phones have to try to block these things.

Senator DONNELLY. Well, if you look at the Federal level here,

what is the one or two things that we can do to help you?

Mr. DANDURAND. There is a No Call Working Group that the feds

have right now, and all the states that want to join that do, and

they stay abreast of all of the cutting edge things that are available

to use, so I think that any help that we can receive, Senator

McCaskill’s bill that she is looking at that I have not seen yet, but

hopefully is going to help with this, those sort of things will be

helpful, but I have to give credit as I can to the feds for all the

assistance they give to us states as it is.

Senator DONNELLY. Ms. Blase, you are a tireless bulldog on this

issue, and as you look at this, you know, one of the things that has

struck me is when a caller ID comes up and displays ‘‘FBI,’’ you

know, that means so many things to people in our country, and

when you saw that, I am interested, how did you know that when

you saw FBI that that was a scam?

Ms. BLASE. I did not know when I saw FBI. I picked up the

phone and answered the call and it did not take me fifteen seconds

to figure out that it was a scam, because the man said, well, we

are conducting this investigation and your name popped up, and I

went, why would my—and it was a drug investigation, and I said,

sure, my name is going to pop up on a drug investigation, so I basically told him he was a fraud and hung up, because that is the way

I felt about it. Of course, I had second thoughts and I looked up

the area code and it was a Washington, D.C. area code, and I

thought, oh, my goodness, what if I just really screwed up? I called

my local office at the FBI and said, tell me about this. Do you have

any record of any of this? They said, it is totally a scam and you

did exactly the right thing.

Senator DONNELLY. If you had one or two recommendations for

folks around the country as you looked—you have gone through a

lot of this—what would be the one or two things that you would

most say to them, here is what you really need to do when this

kind of stuff starts. Number one, not pick up the phone.

Ms. BLASE. Not pick up the phone. Do not press one. Do not

press two. Do not do any of those things. If you cannot pick up the

phone, then that is what you should do, but too many of us have

to know what is on the other end of that line. You want to know
21 

what is there. What if it is—I have friends who are ‘‘private callers,’’ who want their phone numbers not to display, so you do not

know when you see ‘‘private caller’’ if that is your friend in New

Zealand or if that is somebody calling to scam you or to try to sell

you something, so you are tempted to at least pick up those unknown callers or private caller things, just to find out what it is.

As soon as you know what it is, hang it up. I have a friend who

will not refuse to answer those. She will always pick up the phone,

no matter how many times I tell her not to.

Senator DONNELLY. Thank you very much, and Madam Chair,

right on time.

The CHAIRMAN. You are, indeed. You get a gold star.

Senator Blumenthal.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Senator Donnelly.

You know, I served as Attorney General of the State of Connecticut for 20 years. I battled against these kinds of scams, and

often, we look to the FTC, because of its broader authority. We

were members of a working group, and so, let me ask you first, Ms.

Greisman, can you give us some examples of alleged violations that

you could not pursue because of lack of authority.

Ms. GREISMAN. What I would say in that regard, where we encounter challenges, it is presented by the Common Carrier Exemption. There is a blurry line between telemarketers and carriers, and

we have worked closely with our colleagues at the FCC to address

this issue, where we see bad carriers, but the distinctions between

carriers and non-carriers can be very gray and——

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Is that an authority problem or an enforcement——

Ms. GREISMAN. It is a jurisdictional problem. We are precluded

from—the Common Carrier Exemption, I cannot recall when it

dates back to, but it is part of the FTC statute.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. There is a vacuum there that has to be

filled. 

Ms. GREISMAN. Correct.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Any other areas where your authority

really has to be broadened to give you the enforcement jurisdiction?

Ms. GREISMAN. Nothing readily comes to mind, but let me think

about that.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I think that is the basis for legislative

change, is to broaden your authority so that enforcement can be

more effective, because that authority essentially turns these violations into garden variety scams. They are dressed up in new technology, but they are basically scams, con artists using a different

technology, and what you need is the resources and the authority

to go after them, correct?

Ms. GREISMAN. I agree. Thank you.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You mentioned, Assistant Attorney General Dandurand, that you have been talking in the working group

against some of the cutting edge issues. You used the words ‘‘cutting edge.’’ Can you give us some idea of what those are.

Mr. DANDURAND. Well, I would again defer to them, because I do

not sit on those calls, and I do not want to talk about something

I am not versed in, so our no call people who are on those calls
22 

could do that, but I would not want to try to talk about something

I am not versed in.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. What are you doing that is cutting edge,

Ms. Greisman?

Ms. GREISMAN. We have traditional law enforcement, but we are

also discussing on those calls with our colleagues at the State level

the different types of technological solutions that we have been

stimulating the marketplace to develop and also discussing our efforts to work with the common carriers, as I alluded to before, to

be more proactive in their anti-fraud efforts.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Do you have data on how often the Do Not

Call Registry is abused?

Ms. GREISMAN. That is an interesting question, and I believe,

Senator McCaskill, you referred to that earlier. To the best of my

knowledge, we are not aware of telemarketers or others accessing

the Do Not Call Registry in an improper manner. In fact, in our

law enforcement work, and we have brought well over 100 cases involving the Do Not Call provisions, it is truly the exception for any

single one of those telemarketers to have accessed the registry.

They are getting their calling lists from lead generators, from other

sources. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Probably those other sources are readily

available to them and they do not need to abuse the registry.

Ms. GREISMAN. I think that is correct.

Mr. SCHULZRINNE. I mean, just to add a technology angle to that,

they can just do sequential dialing. It is easy to find out which area

codes and exchanges are assigned, so they can just simply go

through numbers one by one. They do not need any lists for that.

On occasion, they obviously do try to target using a variety of publicly available lists, as well.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. Well, I want to thank this

panel for this very informative and helpful testimony, and thank

you, Madam Chair, for having the hearing. I have 45 seconds left,

which I will yield to Senator Kaine.

Senator MCCASKILL. We are never going to get over this.

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I am just going to ask one

final question, and then if everyone, including Senator Kaine,

wants to have one final question, they are welcome to do so, also,

and it is for you, Ms. Greisman.

You gave really startling statistics in your testimony. You said

at the end of 2009, the FTC received approximately 63,000 complaints about illegal robocalls per month, and now that number is

up to 150,000 complaints per month, so that is an explosion of complaints, and I can tell you, most people do not call the FTC and

register a complaint. They do not even know that is an option, so

what do you do with those 150,000 complaints that you are getting?

Ms. GREISMAN. They are incredibly valuable for law enforcement,

and they are in a data base that is accessible to all of our State

colleagues and our Federal colleagues. We mine the data. We generate targets from that data, so I cannot under-emphasize how critical it is for consumers to file complaints with us, and I appreciate

that Ms. Blase has done just that.
23 

The CHAIRMAN. That is very helpful to know, because I think

when consumers file complaints, they often wonder, was it worth

it? Was anyone listening? Did anything happen? Is anyone going to

get back to me? Do you actually try to respond to the complaints?

Ms. GREISMAN. That is just not practicable——

The CHAIRMAN. Given the volume.

Ms. GREISMAN. Given the volume, it is not possible.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have—when people put a complaint on

your site, do you have a list of tips for them or advice for them to

avoid becoming a victim?

Ms. GREISMAN. Absolutely. When they file a complaint online,

there are lots of buttons that provide consumer education, business

education, other tips on what to do.

The CHAIRMAN. I put out a seniors’ newsletter that we put in

Area Agencies on Aging, senior centers, et cetera, and what we are

thinking of is having some sort of clip-out coupon that consumers

can take with them, or that we can try using AARP to put into people’s homes so they know what to do, because I think there are

very few people who are like Ms. Blase and really know what is

going on.

Prior to looking into this matter, if I had seen the IRS or the FBI

or the Bangor, Maine Police Department come up on my landline

at home, you can bet I would answer that call. Now, I hope I would

have been able to discern that it was not legitimate—at least, I

hope it would not be legitimate, but for most people, that is a pretty scary name or number to see come up, especially when it is the

legitimate number.

Mr. DANDURAND. Madam Chair?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. DANDURAND. One thing we are also seeing, and I am sure

you know this and it may have already been mentioned, is we are

seeing e-mails now with FBI on there, as well——

The CHAIRMAN. Interesting.

Mr. DANDURAND [continuing]. telling you that you have to contact them immediately in regards to investigations that are taking

place involving you and such.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, one of my hopes is that our hearing today

will help to heighten public awareness, and it has been particularly

valuable, Professor, to learn from you that the technology is out

there, and to me, that is the most important take-away from this

hearing today. I think we need to push the telephone companies,

the telecoms, to implement the technology in the name of consumer

protection, and I will be following the FTC’s work with great interest in this area.

Senator McCaskill.

Senator MCCASKILL. While we were talking, I went on to try to

file a complaint, and pretty straightforward. There is a lot of good

information when you go to the home page, when you just put in

‘‘FTC robocall complaint,’’ and then it allows you to link through

to a complaint. The one thing I do not file, though, is, ‘‘Please file

a complaint because it helps us catch them.’’

Ms. GREISMAN. That is a very good point.

Senator MCCASKILL. You know, I think that Ms. Blase made a

point. You are barely, barely getting the tip of the iceberg in terms
24 

of these complaints, and I think there are people out there like Ms.

Blase who obviously is my favorite witness that we have had, like,

forever, because I can tell you are just my kind of woman. It is just

like, no nonsense, rack them up, let us get this thing solved, and

I think there are a lot of people out there like Ms. Blase, who if

they knew that filing this complaint would help you find these guys

and catch them, they would be much more interested in going

through the process, and so, maybe on that front page where you

have all the different options of learning about how to avoid

robocalls, maybe if you did a big banner, ‘‘by filing a complaint, you

help us catch them,’’ it would increase the number of complaints.

Yes, Ms. Blase.

Ms. BLASE. I think that is exactly right, because I stopped filing

them. I filed several and I did not hear a word back, and nothing

seemed to go away, so I did not know if it was making a difference,

but if you tell me this is going to make a difference, I will go right

back to doing that.

Senator MCCASKILL. There you go. You may not need anybody

else to file complaints to catch the bad guys because Ms. Blase is

back on it.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Kaine.

Senator KAINE. I appreciate the Chairwoman allowing me to ask

an additional 15 questions.

No, I do not have any other questions, Madam Chair. Thank you,

and thanks to all of you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

I want to thank all of our witnesses today. This has been extremely illuminating and I think we can make a real difference

here in helping the public to be more aware. I love the idea of your

actually having an automatic response that goes to consumers who

file complaints that tells them that it is helpful to them, and I

think that would help them feel that it was worthwhile, even if it

does not—if you are not responding to their specific complaint. People like to feel that they make a difference, and this panel has certainly made a difference.

This hearing is about to adjourn, if I could find my closing statement which tells me how long the record is to be open, and I have

it. I want to thank all of our witnesses, and as you can see, there

was a great deal of interest in this hearing today by our excellent

attendance. The Committee members will have until Friday, June

19th, to submit any additional questions for the record or testimony.

I want to thank both the Majority and Minority staff for their

work in putting today’s hearing together.

This concludes the hearing. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX 

Prepared Witness Statements

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Statements for the Record

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