JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Spam calls are a major annoyance, and scammers have gotten extra tricky and have begun shielding their numbers.
But a bill that cleared its first committee stop in the Florida Senate Wednesday morning would put the onus on phone providers to block those deceptive calls on the front end.
The push comes at a time when losses due to scams are seeing a massive spike.
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In 2020, older adults lost a combined $55 million.
Four years later, those annual losses skyrocketed to $445 million.
Jacksonville residents we spoke with told us their experience with spam calls feels never-ending.
“In the past 24 hours… Twelve," said Jon Marks.
“There’s so many I have no idea how many I get,” said Sherry Magill.
To avoid built-in spam call blockers and current Florida call blocking laws, some scammers have started spoofing their caller ID info.
But State Senator Ileana Garcia (R-Miami) is sponsoring legislation that aims to catch the state up.
“We want to get ahead of this very advanced AI digital age where basically they are circumventing everything we currently have in place,” said Garcia during the bill’s first committee stop Wednesday.
Garcia’s bill would require phone companies to implement technologies that could identify and automatically block calls and texts if the caller ID info has been manipulated.
Karen Murillo with AARP Florida explained those spoofed calls can be especially deceptive, as scammers can make it look like they’re calling from a local number or even an official agency.
“Where it looks like it’s coming from the courthouse or local law enforcement saying that you’ve got a warrant out for your arrest, or it may be something like an Amazon delivery scam,” said Murillo.
The bill comes with some sharp teeth as well, with phone companies that fail to comply threatened with a $250,000 fine.
“The technology absolutely exists. It is provably effective. It just is a matter of making sure that all of the networks are using this efficiently and consistently,” said Murillo.
And spam call victims we heard from say they’ll take any help they can get.
“The dozens of spam calls I get daily, if it saved me ten of those a day, it would definitely save some frustration,” said Marks.
The bill still has two more committee stops in the House and Senate.
If passed, phone providers would need to implement the spoof call tech by July 1st of 2027.
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