ATLANTA — It's one of the few things both political parties can agree on: everyone is sick and tired of robocalls.
Monday, President Trump signed the "Traced Act" into law. The bipartisan legislation targets spammers.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could fine the scammers up to $10,000 per fraudulent phone call. Phone companies will be required to verify where calls are coming from and they can't pass the price along to the customers.
"We view the new law as a speed bump instead of a wall in front of the robocallers," said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, a company that tracks and prevents robocalls.
Data collected by YouMail shows Atlanta as the leading city for the annoying calls. In December, nearly 182 million robocalls were made in the greater Atlanta area. That's around 20 calls per day, per person.
Why does Atlanta get so many robocalls? For one, the city is served by four area codes with most of them completely full.
But our southern hospitality may be another problem. Quilici said too many people won't ignore the calls.
"You really should start with not answering unknown numbers. Odds are, it's going to be a spam caller," Quilici said. "You can always let it go to voicemail and go from there."
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