WASHINGTON _ Fake charity appeals or IRS tax delinquency notices. Tricks that tempt you to call an overseas hotline _ and rack up expensive charges. By one estimate, Americans lost more than $10 billion thanks to scam phone calls over the last year.
And thanks to a combination of new technology and legal ambiguity, autodial marketing calls _ both legitimate and illegitimate _ are on the rise. The call-blocking company YouMail reports that U.S. consumers received 48 billion robocalls last year, and they are now the largest source of consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission.
This explosion of so-called robocalls has prompted growing anger among consumers and a rare moment of bipartisan action in Congress. The Senate passed legislation to rein in spam calls by a vote of 97 to 1 in May. The House passed its own version of robocall legislation nearly unanimously in late July _ just three of Congress' 435 members voted against it.
