The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a significant expansion of a rule cracking down on abusive telemarketing practices in a bid to protect older Americans, who are the most common victims of technical support scams.
The FTC announced on Nov. 27 that it approved in a 4–1 vote final modifications to its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), expanding the rule’s coverage to include inbound calls made to technical support services.
The move was prompted by the agency’s determination that many scams trick customers into calling fake tech support hotlines where fraudsters demand payments to solve non-existent problems or try to steal sensitive information from customers….