Senate Republicans and Democrats joined forces Thursday to pass legislation that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says would put an end to “the plague” of robocalls — unwanted scams that target millions of New Yorkers every month.
The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence or TRACED Act — which would give federal agencies authority to track robocalls and slap hefty fines on the scam artists who make them — breezed through the Senate in a decisive 97-1 vote.
The bill now moves to the House, where Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged lawmakers to “follow the Senate’s lead and pass it ASAP.”
“I’ve been beating the drum on the plague of robocalls for years now, because there’s very little more annoying to New Yorkers than being woken up in the dead of night by automated calls trying to scam them out of their hard-earned money,” Schumer, who’s a co-sponsor on the bill, said in a statement.
The bill, which was introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), marks a rare exercise in bipartisanship and would give cellphone providers the ability to authenticate and block unwanted calls while offering law enforcement agencies better resources to criminally prosecute scammers, in addition to levying fines of up to $10,000 per call.
According to a fact-sheet from Schumer’s office, Americans received 4.9 billion robocalls in March, a new record for the number of calls in one month.
New Yorkers are particularly badly hit by robocalls, which are often made from foreign numbers that result in exorbitant fees being charged to people who pick up or try to call back.
In April alone, Empire State residents received more than 290 million robocalls, averaging over 112 calls per second and 11 calls per New Yorker, according to Schumer’s fact-sheet.
“The TRACED Act is just what we need to hang up on these nonstop robocalls,” Schumer said.
