DO NOT Call Act Introduces Jail Time for Robocallers, Doubles Fines for Caller ID Spoofing

The Deter Obnoxious, Nefarious, and Outrageous Telephone Calls Act of 2025, mercifully shortened to the DO NOT Call Act, is aiming to put the fear of the federal government into the hearts of robocallers and scam artists. This bill significantly raises the stakes for anyone violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)—the law that’s supposed to protect you from unwanted automated calls and texts.

The New Criminal Penalties: Not Just a Fine Anymore

For the first time, willful and knowing violations of the TCPA could land someone in jail. If a person is found guilty of a willful violation, they face up to one year in prison, a hefty fine under Title 18, or both. This is a massive change. Up until now, illegal robocalling was largely a civil matter, often resulting in fines that shady operations could shrug off. Now, it’s a criminal offense.

But the bill doesn't stop there; it introduces an “aggravated offense” category that carries up to three years in prison. What makes an offense aggravated? It’s basically when the perpetrator is operating at a massive scale or with criminal intent. This includes initiating over 100,000 calls in a 24-hour period, or causing a total loss of $5,000 or more to one or more people within a year. Think of the operations that hit millions of people with fake IRS or warranty scams—they are now looking at felony charges. It’s important to note that the definition of a “call” here explicitly includes text messages sent via an automatic dialing system without your prior consent, meaning those spam texts about winning a free cruise are also covered.

Doubling Down on Spoofers

One of the biggest headaches with robocalls is the spoofed number—when your phone shows a local number, but it’s actually a scammer overseas. This bill targets that deception by dramatically increasing the civil fines for providing inaccurate caller ID information. The maximum penalty for each violation is doubled, jumping from $10,000 to $20,000. Similarly, the maximum total penalty for any single day of violations also increases from $10,000 to $20,000. This is aimed squarely at the businesses that use technology to hide their identity, making it harder for law enforcement to track them and easier for them to trick you into picking up the phone.

What This Means for Your Phone

For the average person juggling work, family, and a never-ending stream of spam calls, this bill is good news. It gives regulators and prosecutors much sharper teeth. Instead of chasing companies through civil court for years, the threat of real jail time and significantly higher fines creates a far stronger deterrent for the worst offenders. If you’ve ever been targeted by a large-scale scam that cost you time or money, the new provisions linking criminal penalties to financial loss ($5,000 or more) are designed to give victims real recourse. Essentially, this legislation is trying to make the cost of doing business for illegal robocallers prohibitively high, both financially and personally.