Maine Senator Collins Sponsors New Robocalling/Spammer Bill

How many times a week does your cell phone ring while showing you a familiar #, only to have it turn out that an unwanted spammer is really on the other end?  We're betting a least a couple.

Maine Senator Collins, among others, are sponsoring a new bill called "Stopping Bad Robo Calls Act", that would double the current penalties imposed on robocallers that rely on "spoofing" their victims.  Spoofing involves showing the receiver of their call a familiar phone number of a family member, a friend, a popular local business or organization, or even the # of the victim's very own cell phone!

There was an estimated 47 million robocalls last year. Fines would double from $10,000 to $20,000, and increase the maximum fine from $1 million to $2 million.

If this bill is approved, one of the bigger aspects of it is that companies like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and others, would be responsible for deploying a new update that would tell cell phone users if an incoming call is authentic or not.  The cost of doing this would not be passed along to the consumer, according to language in the submitted bill.