Recent Telecommunications News
- April 26, 2022: FTC Takes Action to Stop Voice Over Internet Provider From Facilitating Illegal Telemarketing Robocalls, Including Scams Relating to the Pandemic. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider VoIP Terminator Inc., a related company and the firms’ owner for assisting and facilitating the transmission of millions of illegal prerecorded telemarketing robocalls, including those they knew or should have known were scams, to consumers nationwide. Many of the calls originated overseas, and related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the defendants allegedly failing to act as a gatekeeper to stop them from entering the country.
- February 28, 2022: Operators of Credit Card Interest Rate Reduction Scam Permanently Banned from Debt Relief Business Under Settlement With the FTC and Florida Attorney General. The FTC appreciates the assistance of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "These scammers lured victims— financially distressed consumers, along with seniors — into signing up for their debt-relief scheme. Instead of receiving the promised relief, victims were brought down further into debt while the defendants made millions,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said. “Now, working with the FTC, we stopped the defendants from bombarding consumers in Florida with deceptive telemarketing calls promising financial relief, and they will be forced to pay.”
- February 4, 2022: Thune, Markey Urge FCC to Continue Fighting Illegal Robocalls, Encourage Increased Transparency Into Trace-Back Efforts. “In order to provide experts, enforcing entities, Congress, and consumers with a clear picture of the current robocall threat landscape, we respectfully encourage you to use your authority under the TRACED Act to increase transparency around ongoing efforts to trace illegal robocalls,” senators John Thune and Edward Markey wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
- February 2, 2022: Rosenworcel Proposes 'Ringless Voicemail' Robocall Protections. Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive, and can lead to fraud like other robocalls," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. "No one wants to wade through voicemail spam or miss important messages because their mailbox is full. This FCC action would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them."
- Dec 28, 2021: FCC Submits TRACED Act Annual Report 2021 to Congress. The Enforcement Bureau, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and Wireline Competition Bureau submitted a joint annual report to Congress on robocalls and transmission of misleading or inaccurate caller identification information, pursuant to the TRACED Act.
- December 16, 2021: FTC Launches Rulemaking to Combat Sharp Spike in Impersonation Fraud. The rulemaking is aimed at combatting government and business impersonation fraud, a pernicious and prevalent problem that has grown worse during the pandemic. Impersonators use all methods of communication to trick their targets into trusting that they are the government or an established business and then trade on this trust to steal their identity or money.
- December 8, 2021: Scammers Are Tricking More People into Buying Gift Cards. Most gift card scams start with a phone call from someone impersonating a branch of the government like the Social Security Administration, or a business. The caller might threaten to freeze your bank account and tell you that you must buy gift cards to avoid arrest or to keep access to your money in your bank account.
- December 8, 2021: How to Stop Robocalls or Fighting Robocalls. Although some automated calls from pharmacies, airlines and schools are useful, many automated calls are intrusive and illegal.
- November 1, 2021: Reassigned Numbers Database. The FCC Reassigned Numbers Database (RND) is designed to prevent a consumer from getting unwanted calls intended for someone who previously held their phone number.
- Oct 29, 2021: Spoofed Robocalls. The FCC has made combatting unlawful robocalls and malicious caller ID spoofing a top consumer protection priority. By proposing and implementing impactful policy initiatives and pursuing strong enforcement actions, the FCC takes action to protect and empower consumers.
- October 8, 2021: Five Steps to Protect Senior Americans from Illegal Robocalls
- August 12, 2021: ATIS Addresses Non-IP Call Authentication. An industry-first contribution toward addressing illegal robocalling in TDM networks. The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) today announced a technical report and two standards addressing the challenges of call authentication for calls that traverse TDM networks. The technical report provides a framework to evaluate non-IP call authentication and discusses approaches to accommodate the limitations of call authentication for non-IP systems.
- August 11, 2021: July 2021 STIR/SHAKEN Statistics — Signed Robocalls. In July, TransNexus observed calls that were (1) identified as robocalls using call analytics and (2) signed by the Originating Service Provider using SHAKEN. TransNexus dug into this further to look for robocall patterns by SHAKEN attestation level. It also compared the proportions of robocalls among signed and unsigned calls.
- August 5, 2021: FCC Proposes Updating Numbering Rules to Fight Robocalls. The FCC approved a proposal seeking comment on how to modify its policies to reduce access to phone numbers by perpetrators of illegal robocalls. The proposed rules are part of ongoing FCC efforts to protect Americans from unwanted and illegal robocalls.
- July 16, 2021: FTC Takes Action Against Septic Tank Cleaning Company That Made Millions of Illegal Robocalls to Consumers Nationwide. According to a complaint by the FTC[
], Environmental Safety International Inc. (ESI); ESI’s two officers, brothers Joseph Carney and Sean Carney; and their other brother, Raymond Carney, acted together to initiate more than 45 million illegal telemarketing calls to consumers nationwide between January 2018 and March 2019 to promote ESI’s “Activator 1000” line of septic tank cleaning products. - July 2, 2021: June 2021 STIR/SHAKEN Statistics. TransNexus examined SHAKEN call statistics from its ClearIP customers in June. Customers received signed calls from 131 originating providers in June, which offers insight into trends in SHAKEN usage.
- June 29, 2021: FCC Releases Second Annual Report on Robocall Blocking Tools. Analysis finds increasing availability of blocking resources for consumers.
- April 26, 2021: Robocall Mitigation Certification Filing Begins: The FCC has opened the portal to accept robocall mitigation certification filings from voice service providers. All providers that transmit calls with U.S. North American Numbering Plan (NANP) calling numbers must have a registration on file by June 30, 2021.
- April 20, 2021: FCC Requires Voice Providers to Report on Robocall Reduction Efforts: Phone companies must block calls from non-filers.
- April 14, 2021: FCC Issues Robocall Cease-and-Desist Letters to Two Providers: The Commission instructed the providers to stop illegal robocall traffic or else downstream providers will be authorized to block all of their calls.
- March 25, 2021: Robocall Mitigation: In the U.S., the TRACED Act and subsequent FCC orders require voice service providers to deploy STIR/SHAKEN call authentication or, in qualified circumstances, a Robocall Mitigation Program, on every call they originate. This must be in place by June 30, 2021.
- Mar 18, 2021: FCC Issues Robocall Cease-and-Desist Letters to Six Voice Providers
- Mar 18, 2021: FCC Fines Telemarketer $225 Million for Spoofed Robocalls: John C. Spiller and Jakob A. Mears, who used business names including Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom, transmitted spoofed robocalls across the country during the first four and-a-half months of 2019. Mr. Spiller admitted to the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group that he made millions of spoofed calls per day and knowingly called consumers on the Do Not Call list as he believed that it was more profitable to target these consumers. Rising Eagle made the calls on behalf of clients, the largest of which, Health Advisors of America, was sued by the Missouri Attorney General for telemarketing violations in February 2019.
- March 4, 2021: The FTC, along with 46 agencies from 38 states and the District of Columbia, has stopped a massive telefunding operation that bombarded 67 million consumers with 1.3 billion deceptive charitable fundraising calls (mostly illegal robocalls). The defendants collected more than $110 million using their deceptive solicitations. Associated Community Services and a number of related defendants have agreed to settle charges by the FTC and state agencies that they duped generous Americans into donating to charities that failed to provide the services they promised.
- March 2, 2021: Combating Spoofed Robocalls with Caller ID Authentication: Caller ID authorization is a new system aimed at combating illegal caller ID spoofing. Such a system is critical to protecting Americans from scam spoofed robocalls and would erode the ability of callers to illegally spoof a caller ID, which scam artists use to trick Americans into answering their phones when they shouldn't. Industry stakeholders are working to implement caller ID authentication, which is sometimes called STIR/SHAKEN.
- March 2, 2021: Robocalls Are Back: Robocall activity plummeted during the first pandemic wave of March–April 2020. Since then, robocalls have been gradually increasing each month and have returned to pre-pandemic levels, despite increased use of robocall prevention measures. Let’s take a closer look.
- January 29, 2021: A Top Priority — FCC's Push to Combat Robocalls and Spoofing: The FCC has made combating unlawful robocalls and malicious caller ID spoofing a top consumer protection priority. By proposing and implementing impactful policy initiatives and pursuing strong enforcement actions, the FCC takes action to protect and empower consumers.
- January 28, 2021: FBI Warns of Scammers Spoofing FBI Phone Number in Government Impersonation Fraud: In this scam, fraudulent callers posing as an FBI agent inform the victim that their Social Security number has been suspended. The scammer provides a fake name and badge number to trick the victim into believing they are an FBI agent.
- January 14, 2021: FCC Fines Robocaller Nearly $10 Million for Malicious Spoofing: The Federal Communications Commission today fined a robocaller $9,918,000 for illegally using caller ID spoofing with the intent to cause harm. This individual made thousands of spoofed robocalls targeting specific communities with harmful pre-recorded messages.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) maintains the state-specific Do Not Call list for residents who do not want to receive solicitations through their telephone. It is free to subscribe and the number remains on the list indefinitely.
FDACS is also responsible for licensing businesses and salespersons who solicit potential customers through telemarketing.
FDACS categorizes Do Not Call and telemarketing complaints as “unsolicited communications.” This is the No. 1 category of complaints received from consumers with FDACS, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
This categorization allows us to determine if the reported communication is a Do Not Call violation, telemarketing violation or an unregulated communication such as: a survey, scam, political call/text, etc.
Not all communications received are a violation. Was the communication an attempt to sell you a consumer good or service? If yes, then it could be a violation. It is important to gather as much information as possible about the communication you received so that we can investigate and identify those responsible for contacting you.
We recognize that the volume of unsolicited, spoofed and illegal communications received by consumers each and every day is more than just a nuisance. Our complaint form has recently been updated to make reporting easier.
Our goals are to:
- Educate
- Track and investigate
- Enforce
This page will be updated frequently to show you what is currently being reported along with up-to-date information on what's happening in the telecommunications industry, the state of Florida and the federal government.
