FCC must adopt effective challenge for erroneously blocked calls Posted by AVCU on 10:20 AM

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should adopt an effective challenge mechanism for legitimate calls mislabeled as illegal robocalls, CUNA wrote to the FCC Wednesday. The FCC requested comment on its newly implemented call-blocking regime, which it will use to generate a staff report.                                             
The FCC last year issued a default call-blocking order, which after strong CUNA, League and credit union advocacy, included a mechanism for challenging erroneously blocked calls.

“CUNA strongly supports the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to curb illegal robocalls and, in particular, to address the use of unlawful spoofing that may facilitate fraudulent schemes,” the letter reads. “At the same time, CUNA, along with many others, has cautioned against the use of call blocking technologies without the parallel ability of good-faith, legitimate callers to remove or correct the blocking or mislabeling of their legitimate, and often critical, calls.”

CUNA is concerned the FCC’s call-blocking order will result in credit unions being unable to contact members with important information, and since it can happen by default, the consumers would not even be aware the calls were being blocked.

“As CUNA has previously noted, there is near universal support for implementation of effective challenge mechanisms to enable callers to unblock calls,” the letter reads. “To be effective, the challenge mechanism requires use of real time notifications of call blocking, readily ascertainable contact information to lodge concerns and trigger a review process, and a commitment to promptly resolving erroneous blocking.”

CUNA also notes, since the FCC has no authority to authorize the blocking of legal calls, the commission must ensure that “those engaged in blocking calls promptly, transparently and effective reverse the inadvertent blocking of legal calls.”