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FTC changes its telemarketing rules to cover growing ‘tech support scam’ calls

Now inbound calls to tech support scammers are covered.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), making it easier to protect consumers who are tricked into paying scam tech support companies. But as it explains in a published proposal, a 2021 Supreme Court ruling called AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC limited its authority to do so. Without a rewrite of the rules, that meant the FTC could only pursue companies when they’d made an outbound call, leaving many consumers who were tricked by the messages out of luck.

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