BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s telecom watchdog on Tuesday directed service providers to stop all promotional calls from unregistered callers and blacklist them as it tries to tackle a rise in spam and phishing calls which caused people to lose millions of rupees.
The government has sought to crack down on a rise in such calls, including those in which scammers pose as representatives of companies like FedEx and Blue Dart and extract sensitive financial information by sending phishing links under the guise of recovering lost packages.
“All promotional voice calls from unregistered senders/telemarketers using telecom facilities will be stopped immediately,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement shared by the government.
Such unregistered callers will be blacklisted for up to two years, the statement said, adding that telecom service providers would need to send updates on actions taken regarding fraudulent callers on the 1st and 16th of every month.
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
