FTC crackdown stops billions of illegal robocalls
FTC crackdown stops billions of illegal robocalls
FTC chips away at robocallers
Four operations, including one that controls software
blamed for billions of robocalls, have agreed to permanently end their
operations, the Federal Trade Commission said.
Ron Hurtibise March 27, 2019
Stopping more than a billion robocalls won’t make much
difference in the amount of harassment we endure, one analyst says.
This week, four operations responsible for a slew of
illegal robocalls have agreed to permanently stop the harassing activities,
according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Robocalls remain a large and growing problem in the U.S.,
as sophisticated operations have learned to target mobile phones with spoofed
caller IDs.
Consumer Reports and other advocacy groups have been
calling for several years for telephone companies to develop firewalls
preventing junk calls from reaching their customers, but “they’re not working
fast enough,” said a policy analyst.
The four operations, including one based in South
Florida, are defendants in civil lawsuits by the FTC aimed at seizing their
assets and stopping them from making fraudulent calls. Each faced charges they
violated the FTC Act and the agency’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, including its
Do Not Call provisions.
Under court orders announced Tuesday that have been
finalized or are expected to be finalized in coming days, the four companies
are barred from robocalling and most telemarketing activities, including use of
automatic dialer programs, and will pay financial judgments.
One of the companies provided the software that the FTC
is blaming for making more than a billion illegal robocalls.
How to protect yourself against robocalls
Like a game of whack-a-mole, the benefits of enforcement
efforts tend to be short-lived, said Maureen Mahoney, policy analyst at
Consumer Reports.
“The incentives for engaging in illegal robocalling is so
strong,” she said. “Once you shut down one operation, others just pop back up
their place.”
There have been some signs of progress.
Last week, phone service providers AT&T and Comcast
announced successful completion of a test of a new Caller ID authentication
system using digital certificates to verify that an incoming call’s display ID
isn’t being spoofed.
The two companies said they planned to make the services
available to their customers later in the year.
They might not have to block robocalls from companies in
the most recent crackdown, if they abide by terms of their agreements with the
FTC.
Boca Raton-based Pointbreak Media was shut down in May
2018 amid allegations the company falsely claimed to represent Google and
threatened businesses with removal from Google search results unless they paid
a one-time fee ranging from $300 to $700, the FTC said.
Defendants affiliated with Pointbreak that agreed to
settle with the FTC include Michael Pocker and companies Modern Spotlight LLC,
Modern Spotlight Group LLC, Modern Internet Marketing LLC; Steffan Molina and
companies Perfect Image Online LLC and Pinnacle Presence LLC; and Ricardo Diaz.
The Pocker settlement orders him and his companies to pay
more than $5.5 million in fines to the FTC, but those will be suspended after
Pocker pays more than $18,000. Likewise, the Molina settlement orders him and
his companies to pay more than $5 million in fines, but those fines will be
suspended upon payment of about $103,000.
Diaz was hit with a $1.81 million judgment, which will be
“partially suspended” upon payment of $690,817, the FTC said.
The three other companies that agreed to permanently end
robocalling activities are:
-- NetDotSolutions and numerous affiliated companies that
operated “TelWeb,” a computer-based telephone dialing platform that can be used
to blast out a large number of robocalls in a short time. Billions of robocalls
were made using TelWeb, including calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call
registry and calls with fake, or spoofed, caller IDs, the FTC said.
-- Higher Goals Marketing, based in Orlando, pitched fake
debt-relief services, promising to substantially and permanently lower
consumers’ credit card interest rates and save them thousands of dollars in
interest payments, the FTC said.
-- Veterans of America was shut down as part of an
enforcement effort dubbed “Operation Donate with Honor,” a crackdown on
fraudulent charities that gain consumers’ trust by promising that donations
will help veterans and servicemembers, the FTC said. This scheme also used the
names Saving Our Soldiers, Donate Your Car, Donate That Car LLC, Act of Valor
and Medal of Honor.
None of the names is a real charity, the FTC said. The
operation’s ringleader, Travis Deloy Paterson, faces a $541,032 monetary
judgment which will be suspended after he provides significant assets,
including eight vehicles, to the FTC.
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