GREENSBORO, N.C. — Scammers have been able to “spoof,” or fake, the number that shows up on your Caller ID, increasing the chances you’ll answer or tricking you into thinking the caller is legitimate. Robocalls work in a similar way.
If North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has his way, that will change soon.
“I put together a 51 Attorney General coalition to negotiate a series of anti-robocall principles with the big telephone companies,” Stein said. “An important element of that is a technology called STIR/SHAKEN."
Stein is leading the charge to implement STIR/SHAKEN. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), STIR/SHAKEN ensures that calls traveling through phone networks would have their caller ID "signed" as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching you.
It basically authenticates a phone call origin and makes certain the information on the Caller ID matches.
The FCC is requiring providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN in portions of their networks by June 30, 2021.
In 2020, the Consumer Protection Division of the North Carolina Department of Justice received 31,019 consumer complaints. More than 10,000 of them were robocall and do not call complaints. Since so many scams originate through robocalls, Attorney General Josh Stein created the Robocall Report Task Force and asked North Carolinians to report robocallers through a detailed web form (www.ncdoj.gov/norobo) and dedicated robo-report hotline (1-844-8-NO-ROBO). While robocalls and illegal telemarketing calls can be hard to track down and stop, these robocall reports help them identify patterns in scams that they can use to warn consumers about and help them work with state and federal partners to identify technological solutions to stop people from getting these calls.
North Carolina has become the first U.S. state to hold Juul Labs accountable for what state officials say was the e-cigarette maker's role in encouraging vaping among young people.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced a settlement with Juul under which the company will pay $40 million and make changes to its business practices. The lawsuit, originally filed in May of 2019, alleged Juul unlawfully marketed and sold its products, including sleek vaping devices and sweet and fruit-flavored pods, to children.
The agreement requires Juul to stop marketing products to customers under the age of 21, cease advertising on social media and near schools, and abide by other restrictions. The state will use the settlement money to fund treatment programs for teens who use e-cigarettes and for other anti-vaping measures.
