Tired of robocalls? A new report shows half of the largest phone companies earned failing grades when it comes to protecting consumers from receiving robocalls.
Unwanted robocalls seem to be the number one consumer problem for the Federal Communications Commission.
The Let ABC15 Know Team found a new report that shows that even though many phone companies signed an agreement with the FCC to protect consumer from those annoying calls, they’re failing at doing their job.
Teresa Murray, with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, is the author of the report. She graded 24 of the largest phone companies, both cellular and home phone lines, on how far they go to protect consumers from robocalls.
“Calls and robo texts are a huge problem in this country,” said Murray. “What we found was that half of the 24 largest phone companies in this country got Ds and Fs on the services that they offer to customers.”
Only three companies received an ‘A’ grade rating overall:
- Charter/Spectrum
- Comcast/Xfinity
- Nextlink
Here are the grades for four of the biggest companies:
- AT&T - ‘B’ rating overall
- T-Mobile - ‘B’ rating overall
- U-S Cellular -‘C’ rating overall
- Verizon – ‘D’ rating overall
These companies signed an agreement with the FCC to offer free services that would reduce robocalls.
The report reveals that Verizon, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular are offering a free basic app, but customers would have to pay to upgrade to a premium service to block calls.
“AT&T is offering everything for free,” said Murray.
“If you’re getting too many unwanted robocalls, then you should have a conversation with your phone provider,” Murray explained.
Murray added that the report is about demanding the companies honor consumer rights, and in the event they don’t, you may want to shop around for a company that does.
Avoid scam calls
“We want people to know what they should do to protect themselves, and that starts with one word: unexpected,” said Murray.
If you get an unexpected phone call asking for your information that you didn’t expect to give to someone or asking for payment to somebody you didn’t expect to pay, don’t do it.
“Unexpected is bad. It doesn’t mean that the call isn’t legitimate, it just means don’t do anything like this unexpectedly,” said Murray.
