As the volume of cyberscams has surged, a congressional committee is pressing major phone and wireless carriers to provide more information about their efforts to detect and disrupt scam traffic, citing the growing difficulty for consumers to tell legitimate messages from fraudulent ones.
In a request sent to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile on Wednesday evening, Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., the committee’s ranking member, urged the carriers to do more to protect Americans against scams, according to the letter.
The lawmakers said consumers need to be able to trust calls and texts they receive—such as from a doctor’s office or a child’s school—and they argued that scam communications have become increasingly hard to distinguish from legitimate messages. They said too much of the burden of detection has shifted onto customers.
The committee’s request asks the telecom companies for information about how they collect data, monitor for scams and cybercrime, and take action against bad actors. The scrutiny is part of what the committee described as a widening investigation into the role U.S. companies may play in the surge of cyberscams targeting Americans.
The push comes amid broader attention in Washington on scams, including questions involving other parts of the technology ecosystem. The committee said it has been looking at Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, online dating sites, artificial intelligence companies, data brokers and a range of federal agencies regarding their roles in and response to cyberscams.
Lawmakers also pointed to prior attempts to tackle robocalls. They cited the 2019 TRACED Act, in which Congress and the Federal Communications Commission required large carriers to implement caller ID authentication technology to combat caller ID spoofing and make it easier for law enforcement to identify bad actors, but said the problem has continued and has left Americans vulnerable to organized criminal activity.
Industry figures cited in the congressional request highlight the scale of unwanted communications. The letter said wireless providers blocked 55 billion spam and scam robotexts in 2024 and flagged or blocked 45 billion scam calls a year, citing CTIA, while separate anti-spam figures show continued high volumes of messages and calls reaching people.
The committee pointed to additional estimates on robocalls and spam texts, including that Americans received more than 50 billion robocalls in 2025, according to YouMail, and that spam texts surged to more than 19 billion a month in 2024, according to RoboKiller. It also cited Federal Trade Commission data indicating text messages and phone calls were among the most common reported ways scammers targeted victims last year.
A policy official with the telecommunications trade group USTelecom said carriers work to protect consumers by tracing back scam calls, disrupting illegal activity and supporting government investigations and law enforcement. Josh Bercu, senior vice president of policy at USTelecom, said in an email that “Scam prevention requires a coordinated, inter-industry approach and our sector remains committed to strengthening partnerships that protect consumers.”
The request also reflects a debate over incentives, with some telecom companies seeking to monetize anti-scam services—such as premium call-filtering or branded caller ID offered for a fee—while consumer advocates argue stronger incentives are needed. Eden Iscil, senior public policy manager at the National Consumers League, said “Companies will not go far enough until they actually do feel some type of liability,” adding that some financial incentive should push companies to protect consumers as much as possible.
The Associated Press reported that the story was corrected to reflect that the last name of the senior vice president of policy at USTelecom is Bercu, not Berc.
This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) that includes an upcoming documentary.