The Commission’s expanded rules will protect consumers against these scam calls, even if they fight back.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is making revisions to its telemarketing rules to protect consumers against technical support scams that they allegedly initiated or participated in.

Often displayed as pop-up alerts on screens, scammers claim that a consumer’s device is infected with malware or other problems in order to sell them bogus technical support services that they don’t need.

Once a consumer is caught, scammers often ask them to pay for the bogus services through wire transfers, gift cards or other payment methods that can be difficult to reverse.

The FTC said that so far in 2024, consumers have reported losing more than $165m to technical support scams.

Although according to the US Congress, people 60 years and older were five times more likely than younger people to lose money to these particular types of scams.

The Commission could already go after fraudulent companies if they initiated calls to dupe consumers, however now its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) – which defines technical support services as any service marketed to repair, maintain or service any device or enhance, including a computer, smartphone or smart home product – will protect consumers against these scam calls even if the consumer is mistakenly contacted by the scammers with them.

“The Commission will not stand idly by as older consumers continue to report tech support scams as a leading cause of fraud losses,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“Expanding the TSR to ensure that calls to tech support services are covered will help hold businesses accountable and help recover money for injured consumers.”

Previously, in 2014, the Commission amended the Rule to prevent deception in business-to-business calls, and in 2010, it addressed pre-recorded telemarketing calls and debt collection services.

Data from the US Congress showed that older consumers lost more than $175m to tech support scams last year, and an FTC report showed that US users lost $2.7bn to social media scams from 2021.

Additionally, deceptive practices using AI are becoming common. In response, earlier this year, the FTC began targeting companies that use AI to encourage behavior that harms consumers, including going after an online legal service that claims to offer a ‘robot lawyer’ service.

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