Murphy Continues to Lead Effort to End Caller ID Fraud

Press Release

Murphy Continues to Lead Effort to End Caller ID Fraud

After successfully passing legislation in the House of Representatives last December to protect families from harassing and potentially threatening phone calls, Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18) testified again today before the House Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on the need to end the practice of Caller ID fraud.

"A new and scary phone scam has emerged that allows people and organizations to purposely disguise their phone numbers to make it appear on a person's Caller ID as if someone else is calling," said Congressman Tim Murphy. "Stealing, masking or otherwise altering one's caller identification to deceive is a new tool in the hands of criminals. The practice, known as Caller ID fraud, is a serious and growing problem that allows the caller to hide their true identity to obtain someone's personal information for use in identity theft and scams. This growing trend can end up being very harmful to its victims."

In the 109th Congress, Congressman Murphy introduced H.R. 5304, the "Preventing Harassment through Outbound Number Enforcement (PHONE) Act," which would make the practice of Caller ID fraud illegal. The legislation passed the House of Representatives but the session expired before the Senate could act. Congressman Murphy then led a bi-partisan effort to reintroduce a strengthened version of the bill with Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (VA-3). The new version is H.R. 740.

"This technology only allows criminals to terrorize their victims even more," continued Rep. Murphy. "Caller ID fraud has already been used in several cases to steal people's identities and commit credit card fraud. Even more potential dangers exist. A pedophile could stalk a child by stealing a school phone number or the phone number of a friend of the child, a sexual predator could use a doctor's office phone number to call their victim, or a terrorist could make threats from a government phone number. It is nearly impossible for law enforcement to track where such calls originated."

Rep. Murphy introduced the PHONE Act, to make it illegal for anyone to knowingly modify caller ID information with the intent to mislead the recipient of the telephone call. To protect families the bill punishes violators with a felony of up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 for when Caller ID is used "commercial gain," or a misdemeanor for when the crime is a result of practical joke. Any profits made by criminals convicted could be forfeited along with the equipment used to commit the crime.

"The PHONE Act would end the deceptive ‘phone spoofing' tactics now being used to defraud people of their money and deceive them into releasing private information," concluded Murphy. "I commend the Judiciary Committee for holding a hearing on this very important issue threatening our communities and urge it to continue moving this legislation forward."

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