Attorney General Ellison pushes federal government to crack down more on illegal robocalls

Stronger rules from the FCC would keep more Minnesotans safe from robocall scammers

Last year, Americans received nearly 30 billion robocalls and texts, lost $2B in those scams

July 14, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Attorney General Ellison and 48 other attorneys general called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate telephone numbers. Without that access, scammers can’t use real numbers to deceive and scam Americans. The Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, of which Attorney General Ellison’s office is an active member, asked the FCC to work on this issue in 2021, and members of this coalition are now responding to the FCC’s proposed rules.

“If there’s one thing besides Minnesota sports teams and the State Fair that unites Minnesotans, it’s our hatred of robocalls. I get them, we all get them, and we’re all sick and tired of being bombarded with them every day,” said Attorney General Ellison. “The FCC has strengthened its rules over the last several years, and we’re asking them to step up their efforts to crack down on these scammers and deliver even tougher rules around robocalls.”

Last year, Americans received approximately 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams. Scammers used to primarily illegally “spoof” other people’s phone numbers to make it look like a call was coming from a legitimate company or government agency. But scammers can’t easily do this anymore after the federal government and state attorneys general took action to cut down on illegal spoofing. Now, scammers often purchase legitimate phone numbers and use them to make robocalls. 

While most legitimate businesses use the same phone number for many years, scammers cycle through millions of brand new phone numbers, which helps them avoid detection by spam filters. In one North Carolina case, scammers made more than 17.3 million calls on a single day through one phone company – but they generally didn’t use the same number more than twice to make those calls, which is a common tactic among scammers. 

In addition to the steps the FCC is already taking, the bipartisan attorneys general are asking the federal government to do more, including: 

• Require every company that is authorized to purchase and then resell phone numbers in North America to meet stronger certification rules and share how and to whom they are assigning numbers. 
• Require these companies to submit regular reports about the sale and use of numbers, so law enforcement can trace illegal robocalls back to the source. These reports will also help law enforcement hold all the companies in the call path accountable for selling or transmitting numbers used to conduct illegal robocalls. 
• Require people and entities that are applying to access phone numbers to confirm that they won’t use them to make illegal robocalls.
• Block the sale of phone numbers to entities that aren’t tied to a calling or texting service. Robocallers often buy these numbers without linking them to a legitimate phone service, since they don’t plan on using the numbers for legitimate calling and texting purposes. 
• Prohibit number cycling, which is when an entity buys lots of numbers and then uses them on a rotating, sometimes single-use basis to avoid being detected by tools that flag numbers used to make illegal robocalls.
• Restrict the offering of trial numbers to discourage scammers from taking advantage of them to harm consumers.

Attorney General Ellison is joined in signing the letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Attorney General Ellison’s long record of work to rein in illegal robocallers

In May 2023, Attorney General Ellison sued Avid Telecom for allegedly initiating and facilitating billions of illegal robocalls to millions of people and violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal telemarketing and consumer laws. Attorney General Ellison alleges in the lawsuit that Avid Telecom sent or transmitted more than 7.5 billion calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, including at least 14,395 calls into Minnesota. On May 9, 2024, the United States District Court in Arizona has denied Avid Telecom’s multiple attempts to dismiss and delay the lawsuit.

In October 2024, Attorney General Ellison sent a warning letter to iDentidad Advertising Development LLC urging the company to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocall traffic or face legal consequences. iDenidad is believed to have transmitted calls containing IRS/Social Security Administration government imposter scams, utilities scams, and financial scams.

In August 2025, Attorney General Ellison launched Operation Robocall Roundup, a multistate effort by the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force to crack down on robocalls across the country. Ellison joined a bipartisan coalition of 50 attorneys general in sending warning letters to 37 voice providers demanding that they act now to stop illegal robocalls being routed through their networks.

In December 2025, Attorney General Ellison and the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force launched Phase Two of Operation Robocall Roundup by opening investigations into four large telecom providers — Bandwidth, Inteliquent, Lumen Technologies, and Peerless Network — for having transmitted and continue to transmit high-volume calls associated with high-volume illegal and/or suspicious robocall campaigns on behalf of one or more of their customers.

Minnesotans with complaints about robocalls can submit them to the Attorney General’s Office using this online form. The Office can also be contacted by phone at (651) 296-3353 (Metro area) or (800) 657-3787 (Greater Minnesota).