Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls last year – and scam calls made up more than half of them.
Now the man Trump put in charge of the FCC is going after the foreign operations running that racket.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr just dropped a proposal that could end the calls ruining your dinner – and the story behind it is worse than you think.
How Overseas Scam Call Centers Turned Your Phone Into a Weapon Against You
Carr laid it out plainly at a Breitbart policy event Tuesday.
"We often have instances where workers at these foreign call centers, because they get paid so little, they get flipped by bad actors to access your account, to change your account," Carr said.
The company you called for help with your cable bill handed your account number to someone willing to bribe an underpaid call center worker.
Carr's FCC will vote March 26 on a package of reforms targeting the offshore call center problem.
The proposal requires businesses to disclose when your call gets routed overseas.
Any customer routed overseas can demand a U.S.-based representative on the spot.
Foreign call centers that keep American accounts must meet English proficiency standards.
Overseas operations running illegal robocall scams face targeted tariffs or bonds.
"Too many Americans have struggled to resolve an issue with a representative due to cultural and language barriers," Carr told Fox News Digital. "Overseas customer service centers also raise concerns about protecting consumers' personal information."
The 30-Year Offshore Outsourcing Scheme That Killed American Call Center Jobs
Nearly 70% of U.S. businesses have outsourced at least one department to foreign countries.
Corporate America spent thirty years exporting these jobs for one reason: labor was cheaper in India, the Philippines, and a dozen other countries than it was in Ohio.
American workers lost their call center jobs. American customers got stuck with representatives who couldn't solve their problems. Foreign operators used the access – and the training – to build some of the most sophisticated fraud operations on earth.
Carr made the security case directly: foreign call center workers learn the systems, learn the scripts, learn exactly how American companies verify your identity – and then some take that knowledge straight to criminal enterprises running scams against the same customers they were supposed to serve.
The FCC already forced one major company to act. Charter Communications – which completed its $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications last month to become the nation's largest cable provider with over 38 million subscribers – pledged to onshore its call centers as a condition of FCC merger approval.
"It's a good win for customers, and it's a good win for the country," Carr said.
What the FCC Robocall Crackdown Actually Does and When It Takes Effect
Biden's FCC spent four years chasing content moderation fights and net neutrality rewrites while scam calls surged 15% and Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls in a single year.
Carr is focused on making your phone stop ringing with scam calls and making sure that when you do call your bank, someone who speaks clear English picks up.
The March 26 vote kicks off a public comment period – and after that, a second vote to formally adopt the rules.
The foreign call centers and the corporations outsourcing to them will fight this hard.
The FBI raided three call centers in India last month and found they had stolen $48 million from more than 650 Americans – running the exact scam Carr is describing, using legitimate call center infrastructure to target victims with fake tech support calls and law enforcement impersonations.
Every lobbyist in Washington knows the money corporations pocket by routing your call to Manila instead of Memphis. Carr is asking them to give that up – or at minimum, stop hiding it from the customers paying their bills.
Sources:
- Brian Flood, "Trump's FCC aims to crack down on offshore call centers, illegal robocalls, chairman says," Fox News, March 4, 2026.
- David Zimmermann, "Carr says overseas call centers pose 'security issue' as part of FCC proposal list," Washington Examiner, March 10, 2026.
- YouMail Robocall Index, "U.S. Consumers Received 52.5 Billion Robocalls in 2025," January 8, 2026.