KYC (“Know Your Customer) rules require phone companies to know who is making calls through their networks and what kinds of business these customers are conducting.
Source: N.M. Department of Justice
Albuquerque, NM – Attorney General Raúl Torrez, as part of a bipartisan coalition of 50 attorneys general, is pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to strengthen its “Know Your Customer” (KYC) rules to help prevent scammers from using the U.S. communications network to make illegal robocalls. KYC rules require phone companies to know who is making calls through their networks and what kinds of business these customers are conducting. With that information, phone companies can suspend or terminate callers who use their networks to make unlawful calls, or decline to do business with customers that are not legitimate companies (or cannot prove that they conduct lawful business).
“Illegal robocalls are more than just an annoyance, they are one of the most common tools criminals use to steal from hardworking families, target seniors, and undermine trust in our communications systems,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “Strengthening Know Your Customer requirements will make it harder for scammers to hide behind anonymous phone networks and easier for providers to stop fraudulent calls before they reach New Mexicans. We are urging the FCC to adopt stronger safeguards that hold bad actors accountable and better protect consumers from increasingly sophisticated scams.”
“My office will continue to put pressure on these entities to reduce the frequency of these calls and prevent New Mexicans from being subjected to the harm these robocallers cause.”
Illegal robocalls start with an originating voice service provider allowing bad actors to use their network. If scammers can’t get their calls onto the U.S. communications network, they can’t make illegal robocalls. So, these originating voice service providers are key to stopping these calls from reaching people.
Even though providers are already required to know who their customers are, the attorneys general assert that current requirements aren’t strong enough—as evidenced by the prevalence of robocall scams. Last year, Americans received more than 29.6 billion scam robocalls and texts and lost nearly $2 billion to these scams.
In addition to what the FCC is currently doing, the coalition is urging the commission to:
- Require providers to understand their customers’ business. In addition to verifying a customer’s identity and existence, originating providers should also be required to examine and understand the customer’s business practices, reputation, history, intended use of services, and their compliance with state and federal laws.
- Hold all originating providers to KYC standards. Even small originating service providers should be required to meet enhanced KYC standards. Scammers use originating providers, regardless of size, to access the communications network. In fact, illegal calls are often facilitated by smaller voice service providers. Not holding small providers to the same standards could cause them to be even more attractive to bad actors looking to use them to make illegal robocalls.
- Require originating providers to collect additional information on high-risk customers. While KYC requirements should be universal, the attorneys general support additional, long-term monitoring of customers who are more likely to make illegal robocalls, such as those subscribing to high volume services.
Attorney General Torrez, as part of a coalition of 49 attorneys general, also sent reply comments earlier this month to the FCC encouraging the commission to crack down on illegal robocalls by strengthening rules that would cut off scammers’ access to legitimate phone numbers. Attorney General Torrez has been actively involved in this issue, including his participation in the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force.
The two letters are part of Phase Two of Operation Robocall Roundup, an effort by the Task Force, to crack down on robocalls across the country. Phase One launched in August 2025 with warning letters sent to 37 smaller voice providers that were allowing suspected illegal robocalls onto the U.S. telephone network. Phase Two launched in December and expanded the crackdown to four of the largest intermediate voice services providers in the country.
Attorney General Torrez is joined in this letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia , Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
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