Election-season robocalls and your business phone line

The midterm elections are on November 3. Between now and then, the phone your business advertises is likely to ring more often with calls you didn’t ask for: campaign messages, survey calls, requests for donations, and scammers who use the season as cover. The FCC itself expects an increase in campaign calls and texts during an election season (FCC).

You can’t just stop answering unknown numbers. On a business line, an unknown number is often a new customer. Here’s what the rules allow, what the FCC is being asked to change, and how to keep the real calls coming through.

What the FCC is weighing now

On August 31, the group Club for Growth asked the FCC for a waiver that would let callers make noncommercial, political calls to cell phones with an artificial or prerecorded voice, “including an AI-generated voice”, without the recipient’s prior consent. The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau asked for public comment on September 4. Comments were due October 5, and reply comments are due October 19 (FCC).

The FCC hasn’t decided. Whichever way it goes, it’s a reminder to look at how your own phone handles calls you didn’t ask for, because for many business landlines, these calls are already allowed.

The rules today, in plain terms

From the FCC’s guide to political calls and texts (FCC):

• Cell phones need consent. Political autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to a cell phone are prohibited without the called party’s prior express consent. The petition asks the FCC to waive that rule for prerecorded and AI-voice political calls, not texts. Political texts sent manually, rather than by an autodialer, don’t need consent today, though a second petition in the same FCC notice asks whether mass “click to send” texting counts as autodialed.
• Most landlines don’t. Political autodialed or prerecorded calls to landlines are allowed without consent. The exceptions are protected lines, such as toll-free, emergency or hospital lines, which follow the cell-phone rule. If your business uses a toll-free number, that line is protected too. Calls without consent to residential landlines are limited to three in any 30-day period.
• The message has to say who’s calling. A prerecorded message must state who is making the call at the start, and give the caller’s phone number during or after the message.
• AI voices count as artificial. Since February 2024, the FCC has treated AI-generated voices as “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, so the same rules apply to them (FCC).

And the Do Not Call Registry won’t help here. The FTC lists political calls among the calls the registry still allows, and says plainly that business phone numbers aren’t covered at all (FTC).

This is general information, not legal advice.

Robocalls overall are down, but not gone

The call-blocking company YouMail estimates Americans received nearly 3.9 billion robocalls in September, about 128 million a day. Its 12-month total was the lowest since April 2021, but 46% of September’s robocalls were telemarketing or scams (YouMail). Election calls add to that, and they arrive in a short burst.

The scams that ride along

Election season is good cover for scammers, because a call asking for money for a cause sounds normal in October. The FTC’s advice on phone scams (FTC):

• Scammers pose as real charities and ask for donations.
• Payment by wire transfer, gift card, cryptocurrency or payment app is a warning sign, because the money is hard to get back.
• Most honest businesses give you time to think it over and get the details in writing. Pressure to decide now is a red flag.
• Caller ID can be faked. Scammers can make any name or number show up on your screen.

The FCC adds: if a caller or a recording asks you to press a button to stop the calls, just hang up, because scammers use that to find people to target. Don’t answer “yes” or “no” questions from a caller you don’t know, and if someone says they’re from a company or agency, hang up and call the number on its website (FCC).

For a business, add one more: never give account, payroll or vendor details to an unexpected caller, however official they sound.

A plan for the next three weeks

• Don’t answer every unknown number live, but don’t let them all go to a full voicemail box either. Decide what answers when you can’t.
• Ask your phone company about call blocking. The FCC allows carriers to block robocalls by default based on reasonable analytics (FCC).
• Check your voicemail often enough that spam doesn’t fill it and turn real customers away (FCC).
• Block the repeat offenders by number.
• Tell your staff the rules for unexpected callers: no payments, no account details, no pressing buttons.
• Report calls that break the rules. File a complaint at fcc.gov/complaints, forward unwanted texts to 7726, and report scams at ReportFraud.ftc.gov (FCC, FTC).

Where Redtie fits

Redtie is a phone line with an AI assistant built in. Here’s what it does in a busy calling season, and what it doesn’t.

• The assistant answers for you, every call or only the ones you don’t pick up, line by line. It asks who’s calling and what they need, and reads the callback number back.
• Spam stays out of your inbox. When the assistant judges a call to be spam, you don’t get a summary for it.
• Block a number from its call details. A blocked number is rejected before it rings.
• Real customers get through. You get a written summary of each real call, with the transcript, by email, or by text if you opt in.
• A separate business number in the area code you choose, so you don’t have to hand out your personal cell. Or forward your existing number to it.
• A 7-day free trial, then $25 a month per line.

What it isn’t:

• It doesn’t catch every unwanted call. It’s software, and some spam will sound like a customer. Some real callers will hang up on any assistant, and a real call it marks as spam won’t get a summary, so glance at your Activity now and then.
• It doesn’t block political calls as a category, and it can’t tell you whether a call broke the rules.
• It’s for calls. Redtie can text you the summaries if you opt in; it doesn’t text your customers.
• It isn’t an emergency phone. It may not support 911 or other emergency calls; the FCC notes that internet-based phone service can have limits with 911 (FCC).

Start this week

Count the calls you get between now and November 3 that weren’t customers. If it’s a handful, call blocking from your carrier is enough. If it’s enough that real customers are hitting a full voicemail box, put something in front of the phone that answers for you.

See how Redtie works as an AI receptionist for small business, or read what happens to the calls your business misses.