Joint Trades Letter to the FCC on the Foreign Call Centers NPRM

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

The American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, America's Credit Unions, Bank Policy Institute, Consumer Bankers Association, Defense Credit Union Council, Electronic Transactions Association, Financial Technology Association, Housing Policy Council, Mortgage Bankers Association, Payments Leadership Council, and Student Loan Servicing Alliance (collectively, the Associations) appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Federal Communications Commission's (Commission or FCC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Proposal) that would impose certain requirements on the customer call centers of telecommunications companies that are located abroad.

The Associations commend the Commission’s recent, decisive actions targeting illegal call spoofing. This past April, with our support, the Commission voted to issue a proposal that would impose stronger "know your customer" requirements on voice service providers that originate calls (originating providers). Two weeks ago—and also with our support—the Commission voted to issue a separate proposal that would impose stronger requirements on "upstream" providers that allow calls to pass through their network and require originating providers to establish a verified association between its customer (the caller) and the telephone number used to place the call. The Commission also has brought enforcement actions against an originating provider that originated hundreds of millions of illegal calls and against a “gateway” provider for transmitting illegal calls that originated abroad.

These policy and enforcement actions will help prevent criminals from impersonating banks, credit unions, and other legitimate businesses in calls placed to consumers. Thus, the actions have a direct nexus to stopping unlawful calls, and we urge the Commission to finalize the two proposals as soon as feasible.

By contrast, the proposed new regulations will not advance the fight against fraud; therefore, we do not support it. By the Proposal, the Commission would impose on the foreign call centers of telecommunications companies an English proficiency requirement, a limit on the percentage of customer service calls that may be made from or answered at these call centers, a mandatory disclosure at the beginning of calls handled at a foreign call center, a right for the consumer to have the call transferred to a U.S.-based call center, and a prohibition on using foreign call centers to handle communications involving sensitive customer data. These requirements will not stop criminal operations’ use of illegal call spoofing to perpetrate fraud; instead, they would regulate ordinary customer service communications of legitimate businesses, including routine account-servicing and fraud-response interactions involving our members.

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