FCC Chair Wants to Make ‘Annoying’ Ringless Voicemails Illegal Under TCPA

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Ringless Voicemails TCPA Proposal Overview:

• Who: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed that ringless voicemails left without consent should be illegal. 
• Why: Her proposal was made in response to a petition by a robocalling company that asserts ringless voicemails should not be banned under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act as they are not technically “calls.”
• Where: The regulation would affect people nationwide.

Callers should not be able to leave “ringless” voicemails on people’s phones without their consent, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has asserted while proposing that “ringless” voicemails be further regulated.

In a proposal made Feb. 3, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said ringless voicemails should be banned under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) unless the caller has first obtained the consumer’s consent to receive a voicemail, Broadband Breakfast reports. 

“Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive and can lead to fraud like other robocalls–so it should face the same consumer protection rules,” Rosenworcel said. “No one wants to wade through voicemail spam messages because their mailbox is full.”

Rosenworcel is proposing that a regulation requiring callers to obtain a consumer’s consent before delivering a “ringless voicemail,” a message left in their mailbox without ringing their cell phone, be added to the TCPA.

Her recommendation comes in opposition to a petition lodged by the robocalling company All About Message, Broadband Breakfast reports.

The company asserts that ringless voicemails are technically not “calls” and therefore should not be protected under the TCPA.

However, Rosenworcel said she was committed to protecting consumers from unwanted calls, saying the addition of the regulation “would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them.” 

She said the agency “is not going to stop until we get robocallers, spoofers and scammers off the line.”

How the TCPA Protects Consumers

The TCPA was enacted in 1991 to protect consumers and to stop companies from invading people’s privacy and engaging in unwanted and annoying telephone solicitation.

The TCPA restricts certain types of calls and other communications to consumers, such as calls that use artificial or prerecorded voices or that are dialed using automated dialing technology, unsolicited text messages, calls to numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry and more.

Consumers whose rights under the TCPA are violated may be able to collect between $500 and $1,500 per call or text message if the company has broken the law. 

The proposal comes as U.S. phones reportedly received more than 50 billion robocalls in 2021. 

Do you think companies should be banned from leaving ringless voicemails? Let us know in the comments! 

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