BISMARCK, N.D. (Prairie PUblic Radio) – A coalition of 51 attorneys general, including North Dakota’s Wayne Stenehjem, has reached an agreement with 12 national telephone companies to help protect customers from illegal robocalls.

“For too long, phone customers have been harassed by a barrage of illegal robocalls, seemingly without any recourse. With the help of the phone companies, unscrupulous scam artists will not be able to hide behind a curtain of technology any longer,” said Stenehjem.

Stenehjem says the companies will also be using technology to make sure calls to customers are coming from a legitimate source. And he says those companies will help make it easier for Attorneys General to find and prosecute bad actors.

Stenehjem says these scammers are making millions of calls each month.

The coalition of attorneys general, led by North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, and Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, includes attorneys general from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The participating telephone companies are AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Windstream.