NEW YORK (AP) — For Michael Rizzo, answering the phone is too often a waste of time.

His Sports City Pizza Pub in Buffalo, New York, depends on customers calling to order wings, pizza and potato skins. But much of the time, it's an automated message pushing a scam . "It's getting to the point where it's blocking other callers from coming in," the 24-year-old bar owner said.

Help is coming, if slowly. Over the past year, prodded by the government, cellphones have added new tools to counteract unwanted "robocalls." The Federal Communications Commission has proposed letting phone companies block...