Robocalls a Problem in Other Countries, but Scams May Be Worse

Unwanted marketing calls cause headaches worldwide, telecom and privacy regulators said. Robocalls have attracted so many complaints that in the past two years or so, the U.K. and Australia signed formal pacts with the U.S. to fight them. It appears, though, that scam calls may be becoming a far bigger concern.

The U.K. Office of Communications and the Information Commissioner's Office jointly tackle nuisance and scam calls. The ICO leads on live and recorded marketing calls and nuisance text messages and emails, while Ofcom handles silent and abandoned calls, they noted in March 2021. The ICO received nearly 104,000 complaints about nuisance calls and text messages in 2020, a 20% decrease from the prior year that was due to the initial coronavirus lockdown. Over 2020, however, complaint numbers rose to a higher level than in the latter months of 2019, a 27% rise that Ofcom said it expected to continue into 2021. "A sharp rise in suspected scam text messages was also noted," many of which tried to exploit the pandemic and the U.K.'s response to it.

The ICO regulates the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which give people specific rights with regard to e-communications, a spokesperson emailed: "There are specific rules on marketing calls, emails, texts, faxes, cookies, keeping communications secure and customer privacy." The office publishes nuisance call trends broken down by month, contact type and call category of complaints. January had 5,646 total complaints: 3,303 live calls, 1,434 automated and 909 texts. February brought 5,683 total complaints, 3,445 live, 1,453 automated and 786 texts. The ICO also publishes its enforcement actions. So far this year, it has fined about 12 companies for making unsolicited direct marketing calls. It hit one home improvement company with a 200,000 pound ($261,000) fine in February.

The ICO and FTC agreed in a December 2020 memorandum of understanding to provide mutual legal assistance to enforce laws protecting personal information in the private sector, including on unsolicited commercial email and robocalls. They're both members of the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network, which didn't comment.

Ofcom has been working to reduce nuisance calls for years, and the problem is shifting to scams, it noted in a proposal for tackling scam calls. For one thing, it said, unwanted calls are now harder to detect because callers are more likely to change their numbers often or to use a spoofed number. This means in many cases, the perpetrator is likely to have shifted to a new number by the time the problem has been reported, and it's harder to trace those making unwanted calls because the number hasn't been assigned to the person making the calls.

Australia is also active on robocalls. The Australian Communications and Media Authority responds to unwanted calls and messages by, for example, enforcing the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the Spam Act 2003, a spokesperson emailed. So far this year, ACMA has taken action against three companies for unwanted calls and texts, including a fine for spam marketing messages of over 3.7 million Australian dollars ($2.7 million) against a sports betting firm. Last year it handled 14 telemarketing and spam investigations. ACMA signed a May 2021 mutual legal assistance MOU with the FCC to address unlawful automated or prerecorded voice message telephone calls, unsolicited texts and phone scams, and last month agreed to boost joint efforts with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission against unlawful telemarking and spam.

However, "our complaint data indicates the single biggest area of concern about unsolicited communications is scams, making up between approximately 33% and 66% of complaints in any given year," ACMA said. New rules it enacted are having "a real impact," but "unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to stop scams."

Germany outlaws calls for advertising purposes without prior express consent from the consumer, a spokesperson for telecom regulator BNetzA (Bundesnetzagentur) emailed. This applies to voice-to-voice and automated calls. The regulator prosecutes such unauthorized advertising calls and can impose fines of up to 300,000 euros ($327,000). Consumers can withdraw consent at any time for no reason. Last year, BNetzA received more than 79,000 complaints about unauthorized phone advertising (calls without consent), the vast majority of them voice-to-voice calls, the spokesperson said. It imposed fines of 1.43 million euros.