CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Legislators Urged to Curb 900 Line Fraud

A state prosecutor of consumer fraud cases told a legislative committee that the best way to protect people from abuses of the 900 telephone number system is to subject the solicitors to truth-in-advertising laws. Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Herschel Elkins, who has built a national reputation as a watchdog for the California consumer, told the Assembly Consumer Protection Committee that the federal government has preempted the regulation of interstate operations of the nation’s long-distance telephone carriers. However, fraudulent advertising long has been a crime in California and various provisions of truth-in-advertising laws could easily be extended to out-of-state providers of 900 number information services who do business in California, Elkins said.