Protecting American Consumers from Robocalls Act

Key Points

• The bill expands Do Not Call protections beyond residential phones to cover all telephone subscribers, including business lines and cell phones. Current law only protects residential lines, but this change removes that limitation across the board.
• Consumers could sue after receiving just one illegal robocall instead of needing two or more from the same company within a year. The bill replaces the current threshold with a single-call trigger for legal action.
• The definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (autodialer) is updated to close a loophole. Systems that dial from a stored list of phone numbers would now clearly fall under the law, not just those using random or sequential number generators.
• The bill removes the "up to" language for the $500 statutory penalty, making it harder for violators to argue for reduced fines when they break the Do Not Call rules.
• The FCC would be required to update its official regulations within 270 days of the bill becoming law to implement all of these changes.