Drummond pushes federal government to further crackdown on illegal robocalls

OKLAHOMA CITY (July 10, 2026) – Attorney General Gentner Drummond this week urged the Federal Communications Commission to strengthen rules cutting off scammers' access to legitimate telephone numbers. The move aims to protect Oklahomans from fraudsters who use real numbers to deceive and steal from them.

Drummond joined 48 other state attorneys general in responding to the FCC's proposed rules, which stem from a request the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force made to the commission in 2021.

Con artists used to illegally “spoof” other people’s phone numbers to make it look like a call from a legitimate organization. But fraudsters can’t easily do that anymore after the federal government and state attorneys general took action to cut down on illegal spoofing. Now, scammers often purchase real phone numbers and use them to make robocalls.  

“Scammers shouldn't be able to buy their way into Oklahomans' trust with a phone number that looks legitimate,” Drummond said. “Every number a scammer buys is another chance to steal from someone's grandmother, drain a family's savings or con a small business owner out of a day's work. It's time to make it harder to get a number and easier to catch the people abusing them.”

Drummond and the 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. 
• 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.

According to Federal Trade Commission data, Oklahoma sits in the top 10 states for the highest number of official fraud and telemarketing complaints filed per capita. In 2024, Americans lost more than $12.5 billion in 2024 to scams, including through phone calls and texts.