On Your Side: Missouri AG urges FCC to crack down on robocalls

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - Unwanted calls are more than an annoyance for Clayton Donohoe. As an assistant manager at a local restaurant, he says they can interrupt customer service and make it harder to do business.

“We’ll get 50 to sometimes 100 calls in a day,” Donohoe said.

His staff can’t afford to ignore a ringing phone: The next caller could be a customer. But Donohoe said some automated callers sound convincing enough to fool him.

“We think it’s a customer calling and 100% as they’ll even have like an automated person that sounds pretty good,” he said. “And they’ve got me a couple times lately.”

The calls can interrupt conversations with customers and tie up the restaurant’s phone lines, he said.

“It definitely disrupts business. It can take down margins and stuff like that,” Donohoe said. “We would like to have it go away.”

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said unwanted calls are a widespread concern.

“It is the number one complaint our office receives. No question,” Hanaway said.

According to Truecaller, a caller identification and spam-blocking app, Missourians received more than 58 million spam calls last month, placing the state 10th in the nation. Arkansas received about 25 million, according to the app.

Hanaway and 48 other attorneys general are urging the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen its Robocall Mitigation Database, which helps keep illegal robocall providers off the nation’s phone networks. They say tougher verification and greater transparency could help identify suspicious providers and reduce unwanted calls.

“I’m anticipating that we’re going to have an agreement where any number that’s sort of a legitimate number is able to block any that is unknown to it,” Hanaway said. “We’ll see.”

Donohoe said he’d be happy to receive even half as many robocalls. For now, his staff will continue answering the phone.

“We just have to carry on customer service as usual because, I mean, at the end of the day, no matter what, we have to treat it as if it was a customer,” he said.

Missourians can report unwanted calls to the attorney general’s No Call Unit at 866-289-9633 or visit ago.mo.gov to report calls or sign up for the state’s No Call list.

In Arkansas, you can report unwanted calls to the attorney general at 888- 382-1222 or visit arkansasag.gov to report calls or sign up for the state’s Do Not Call registry.

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