Calls from credit unions and other legitimate businesses are still being blocked or mislabeled as spam, CUNA and other organizations wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Monday.

The letter was sent in response to the FCC’s rulemaking implementing the TRACED Act, which requires the FCC to ensure robocall blocking services are provided with transparent and effective redress options for callers whose calls are erroneously blocked.

“Consumers are harmed when outbound calling numbers used by lawful businesses are mislabeled, or calls from those numbers are blocked, because they may not receive lawful calls affecting their health, safety, or financial well-being. These calls include, for example, safety alerts, fraud alerts, data security breach notifications, product safety recall notices, healthcare and prescription reminders, power outage updates, and other necessary account updates and reminders needed to maintain financial health,” the letter reads. “Some calls placed to consumers are required by federal or state regulators, such as certain mortgage servicing calls. It is critical for consumers that these calls be completed without delay.”

CUNA and the other organizations request the FCC continue its work to implement the TRACED Act and protecting consumers by:

• Requiring Voice Service Providers to notify callers immediately when a call is blocked;
• Requiring Voice Service Providers to remove erroneous blocks promptly — no later than 24 hours after the provider learns of the block;
• Prohibiting a Voice Service Provider from blocking a call that cannot be authenticated under the STIR/SHAKEN call authentication framework because the call originated from a provider that cannot sign calls or the call traveled through a provider that is unable to transmit the authentication information; and
• Requiring Voice Service Providers to apply the TRACED Act redress mechanisms to the third-party call-labeling services that providers utilize.

Additional details, and a link to the letter, can be found on CUNA’s Removing Barriers Blog.