Yes, It’s Bad. Robocalls, and Their Scams, Are Surging.

guest · Mar 30, 2020

District Court Orders Injunctions against Two Telecom Carriers Who Facilitated Hundreds of Millions of Fraudulent Robocalls to Consumers in the United States
March 27, 2020
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dist...two-telecom-carriers-who-facilitated-hundreds

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered orders in two separate civil actions, barring eight individuals and entities from continuing to facilitate the transmission of massive volumes of fraudulent robocalls to consumers in the United States, the Department of Justice announced today.

“These massive robocall fraud schemes target telephones of residents across our country, many of whom are elderly or are otherwise potentially vulnerable to such schemes,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “The department is committed to stopping this unlawful conduct and pursuing those who knowingly facilitate these schemes for their own financial gain.”
As alleged in the complaints, the defendants in both cases operated as VoIP carriers, receiving internet-based calls from other entities, often located abroad, and transmitting those calls first to other carriers within the United States and, ultimately, to the phones of individuals.

As also alleged, the defendants were warned numerous times that they were carrying fraudulent robocalls — including calls impersonating government agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, the IRS, and legitimate businesses, such as Microsoft — [...]
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United States v. Nicholas Palumbo, et al.
In the first case, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction against spouses Nicholas and Natasha Palumbo of Scottsdale, Arizona, and the Arizona companies they own and operate, Ecommerce National LLC d/b/a TollFreeDeals.com and SIP Retail d/b/a sipretail.com. [...]

United States v. John Kahen, et al.
In the second case, the District Court entered consent decrees permanently resolving the matter against five individuals and entities who were also operating intermediary VoIP carriers. The court entered a consent decree on March 2, 2020 against Jon Kahen, a/k/a Jon Kaen of New York, and New York corporations Global Voicecom Inc. and Global Telecommunication Services Inc., permanently barring those defendants [..]
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guest · Mar 30, 2020

FTC Warns Nine VoIP Service Providers and Other Companies against ‘Assisting and Facilitating’ Illegal Coronavirus-related Telemarketing Calls
March 27, 2020
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...oip-service-providers-other-companies-against

Federal Trade Commission staff sent letters to nine Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers and other companies warning them that “assisting and facilitating” illegal telemarketing or robocalls related to the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic is against the law. Many of these calls prey upon consumers’ fear of the virus to perpetrate scams or sow disinformation.

“It’s never good business for VoIP providers and others to help telemarketers make illegal robocalls that scam people,” said FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Andrew Smith. “
The staff sent the letters to the following companies: 1) VoIPMax; 2) SipJoin Holding, Corp.; 3) iFly Communications; 4) Third Rock Telecom; 5) Bluetone Communications, LLC; 6) VoIP Terminator, Inc., also known as BLMarketing; 7) J2 Web Services, Inc.; 8) VoxBone US LLC; and 9) Comet Media, Inc.

They stress that combatting illegal telemarketing is a top priority of the Commission, with a special emphasis on stopping illegal robocalls.
The letters also cite two civil enforcement actions the Department of Justice has taken against VoIP companies and their owners for “committing and conspiring to commit wire fraud by knowingly transmitting robocalls that impersonated federal government agencies.”
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guest · Mar 31, 2020

Millions of coronavirus robocalls are spamming our phones every day
...fraudsters have upped their game
March 31, 2020
https://www.fastcompany.com/9048331...s-robocalls-are-spamming-our-phones-every-day

The average American already receives about 325 unwanted robocalls a year, research says. And now, many of those robocalls aim to capitalize on people’s coronavirus fears.

The phone spam blocking app YouMail recently told the Washington Post’s Tony Romm that a million coronavirus robocalls have been going out daily for the past few weeks. Many of these robocalls are highly suspect, as scammers try to scare the people on the other end of the line into parting with personal information or money.
Transaction Network Services told Politico that one scammer sent out a half a million robocalls about how coronavirus could impact student loans.

Another robocall that went out to people in the Los Angeles area was offering “safety and medical kits.”
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But YouMail CEO Alex Qulici says that the volume of coronavirus robocalls may have slowed down slightly in March. Why? The shutdown orders in India mean that call centers that are used for both scams and legitimate robocall campaigns are now closed, Qulici points out.

Robocall volume typically increases around events like the tax filing deadline and the period for changing health plans. During normal times—remember those?—robocalls are little more than an annoyance for most people. But for robo-scammers to rally around something as serious as coronavirus is particularly galling.
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TNS Report: Americans Now Receive 300 Million Unwanted Robocalls Per Day

US consumers received 106 billion unwanted robocalls (325 per person) in 2019 – a 49% increase from the previous year – according to the Transaction Network Services (TNS) 2020 Robocall Investigation Report released today. A key finding from the TNS report shows that robocallers are increasingly spoofing legitimate customer-care numbers from trusted brands to try to trick consumers.
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ronjor · Mar 31, 2020

FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021

Igor Bonifacic, @igorbonifacic 31 March 2020
The agency says the move will help combat the scourge of robocalls.
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guest · Apr 3, 2020

Feds threaten to cut off service providers allowing illegal COVID-19 related robocalls
April 3, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/news/feds-thre...-allowing-illegal-covid-19-related-robocalls/

The US Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission are demanding that telecommunications service providers help stop illegal coronavirus-related robocalls. On Friday the agencies warned three gateway providers that are facilitating COVID-19-related scam robocalls originating overseas to cut off these calls or face serious consequences.

The agencies said in a press release that unless the calls are stopped within the next 48 hours, the agencies will allow other service providers to block all calls coming from these gateway providers.
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ronjor · Apr 8, 2020

Over half of the calls people receive now are spam

By Eileen Brown for Social Business | April 8, 2020
These uncertain times are prime opportunities for scammers to prey on the masses.
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ronjor · Apr 28, 2020

FCC proposal would help fight one-ring call scams

Christine Fisher, @cfisherwrites 28 April 2029
It could allow carriers to automatically block the illegal calls.
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guest · May 1, 2020

FCC: No more warnings for robocallers before fines
May 1, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fcc-no-more-warnings-for-robocallers-before-fines/

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today issued an order saying that it will no longer warn robocallers before fining them for harassing consumers and violating the law.

Today's order also extends the timeframe within which the FCC can penalize robocallers for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and spoofing calls violations, and increases the penalties for intentional unlawful robocalls.

"Robocall scam operators don’t need a warning these days to know what they are doing is illegal, and this FCC has long disliked the statutory requirement to grant them mulligans," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said today.
"We have taken unprecedented action against spoofing violations in recent years and removing this outdated ‘warning’ requirement will help us speed up enforcement to protect consumers."
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guest · May 2, 2020

Banks Seek Emergency Petition to Reinstate Mass Robocalling. Will It Be Limited to Financial Coronavirus Relief?
May 1, 2020
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/30/robocalls-fcc-banks/

A window may soon open for banks and lenders to use robocalls during the coronavirus crisis. Backed by a push to provide consumers with economic relief, a more expansive exemption could lead to unsolicited debt collection and marketing.

A law passed in 1991 created a working definition of unsolicited robocalls.
Now, the coronavirus crisis has sparked an unusual alliance of consumer advocates and the banking industry to come together to seek exemptions to the 1991 definition — and therefore the penalties that accompany enforcement.
The exemption would allow alerts to inform consumers of loan modifications or payment forbearance options during the Covid-19 epidemic.

“Importantly, the petition specifies that none of these calls would include debt collection or marketing messages,” wrote Margot Saunders, senior counsel to the National Consumer Law Center.
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The NCLC petition calls for automated calls narrowly focused on fee waivers, loan modifications, or relaxation of payment terms on loans secured by homes, as well as other forms of debt relief in direct response to the pandemic.

Saunders, in an interview with The Intercept, said the risk that an exemption to the robocall rules opens the door to debt collection is real, but said she believed it to be unlikely.

“The FCC could go way out on a limb and say calls allowing telemarketing for high-cost loans relate to an emergency, but that would really be a stretch,” said Saunders. “It would be in derogation of all of its precedent.”
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ronjor · May 6, 2020

Is There a Constitutional Right to Make Robocalls?

Gilad Edelman 05.06.2020
Meeting via conference call for the first time ever this week, the Supreme Court considers a case about our phones.
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guest · May 19, 2020

mood said: ↑

FTC Obtains Telemarketing Injunctions against Recidivist Do Not Call Violators Jasjit “Jay” Gotra and His Company, Alliance Security Inc.
Defendants responsible for more than one million illegal calls
August 14, 2019
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...rketing-injunctions-against-recidivist-do-not
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FTC Obtains Final Order against Do Not Call Violator, Banning Him From Nearly All Outbound Telemarketing
May 18, 2020
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...rder-against-do-not-call-violator-banning-him

At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a federal court has approved a final order against Jasjit “Jay” Gotra, the founder and CEO of Alliance Security Inc. (Alliance), which the agency charged in 2018 with causing more than one million calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. The complaint also alleged that Alliance performed illegal credit inquiries on unsuspecting potential customers.

The order announced today resolves the FTC’s litigation in this case. It bans Gotra from nearly all outbound telemarketing, prohibits him from violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and bars him from misrepresenting his affiliation or association with any other business. It also imposes a $9.85 million civil penalty, of which Gotra will pay $88,000, based on his limited financial resources.

“Illegal telemarketing calls aren’t the way to sell home alarm services or anything else,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We fight against unwanted calls on many fronts, and we’re in it for the long haul.”
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ronjor · May 20, 2020

FCC, FTC Demand Robocall-Enabling Service Providers Cut Off Scammers May 20, 2020

The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission demanded that gateway providers allowing COVID-19 pandemic-related scam robocalls into the United States cut off this traffic or face serious consequences.
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guest · May 23, 2020

Coronavirus pandemic claims another victim: Robocalls
May 22, 2020
https://apnews.com/eb60354cc5e9312608e6cd932ab6d8fb

YouMail, which offers a robocall-blocking service, says 2.9 billion robocalls were placed in April in the U.S., down from 4.1 billion in March and 4.8 billion in February. That’s a daily average of 97 million calls in April, down from 132 million in March and 166 million in April.

The main reason: many global call centers have closed or are operating with fewer workers, said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. While it may be odd to think of scams being run out of call centers rather than a dark, creepy basement or a garage, that’s often the case, particularly in countries such as India and the Philippines, experts said.
After a lockdown order went into effect in India in late March, “we saw the volume of calls basically half the next day,” Quilici said.

That means scammers will probably be back in force once the call centers come back online.
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YouMail's robocall index

ronjor · Jun 9, 2020

Insurance telemarketers fined $225M for a billion robocalls

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer 09 June 2020
The U.S. communications regulator on Tuesday proposed a $225 million fine, its largest ever, against two health insurance telemarketers for spamming people with 1 billion robocalls using fake phone numbers.
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guest · Jun 15, 2020

Watch out for these robocall scams during lockdown
June 15, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/watch-out-for-these-robocall-scams-during-lockdown/

Unwanted phone calls happen to almost everyone who has a phone. These calls often happen several times per day and, if you are not vigilant, you could end up the victim of a scam.

Within this in mind, seniors care services company Provision Living surveyed 4,038 Americans in March and April 2020. It wanted to find out their experiences with robocalls -- automated calls from unknown entities -- and whether these calls had changed since the coronavirus pandemic occurred.
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Over nine out of 10 (91%) reported that robocalls are becoming more common.
Almost two out of three (65%) Americans reported that they were receiving robocalls at least once per day -- the average is 3.4 calls daily. Over half of the respondents reported receiving a robocall after 9pm at night.
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Survey Reveals How Often Americans Receive Robocalls

[...] Considering the personal intrusion that many Americans feel when they are pestered by robocalls, it’s no surprise that 37% said they’ve lost their temper and swore or yelled at a robocaller.
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ronjor · Jul 6, 2020

Supreme Court upholds cellphone robocall ban

July 6, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 1991 law that bars robocalls to cellphones.
The case, argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, only arose after Congress in 2015 created an exception in the law that allowed the automated calls for collection of government debt.
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ronjor · Jul 16, 2020

T-Mobile debuts free robocall-fighting service

Ina Fried 16 July 2020
T-Mobile announced Thursday it will offer ScamShield, a free scam-blocking service to all T-Mobile, Metro and Sprint customers.
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ronjor · Jul 17, 2020

FCC: Phone carriers that profit from robocalls could have all calls blocked

Jon Brodkin - 7/17/2020
Safe harbor lets phone companies block all calls from “bad-actor” telecoms.
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guest · Jul 25, 2020

ronjor said: ↑

T-Mobile debuts free robocall-fighting service
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T-Mobile's Scam Shield app now available for download
Sprint's app hasn't been updated yet, though
July 24, 2020
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/...ee-second-proxy-number-to-keep-yours-private/

T-Mobile is bundling a number of a scam protection measures — some of them have been active for years while a couple are new — and is distributing them to every customer under its own and the Sprint banners in an Un-carrier move called Scam Shield. The news belies a key integration for the company that's coming in a couple of weeks.
UPDATE: 2020/07/24 11:37AM PDT BY RYNE HAGER
App rolling out
It's July 24th, and true to its promises, T-Mobile has renamed its Name ID app and pushed out an update changing it to Scam Shield. You can now download the updated Scam Shield app over on the Play Store or APK Mirror.
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guest · Jul 26, 2020

Scammers Who Used Robocalls to Target Cash-Strapped Consumers Banned from Selling Debt Relief Services and Telemarketing
July 24, 2020
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...bocalls-target-cash-strapped-consumers-banned

The operators of a Florida-based company that allegedly defrauded financially-distressed and often older-adult consumers with deceptive robocalls claiming they could save them money by reducing the interest rates on their credit cards has settled Federal Trade Commission charges that their conduct was both deceptive and illegal.

“Companies that cold-call consumers with big promises to lower consumers’ credit card interest rates and purportedly save them thousands of dollars are likely scams,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Consumers should be very skeptical when they receive these types of unsolicited offers.”
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According to the FTC’s complaint against 11 entities and Raymond Gonzalez, Carlos S. Guerrero, and Joshua Hernandez, jointly doing business first as CSG Solutions and then as Second Choice Horizon, the defendants ran a maze of interrelated operations targeting financially distressed consumers—often seniors—with offers of bogus credit card interest rate reduction services

Finally, the order imposes a judgment of $13,881,865 against the defendants, which will be partially suspended based on their inability to pay. The amount each defendant pays will be based on the assets they are required to liquidate.
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guest · Aug 2, 2020

FCC Partnership to Fight Robocalls
July 31, 2020
https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2020/07/31/fcc-partnership-to-fight-robocalls/

On July 27, 2020, the Enforcement Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (the “FCC”) designated the Industry Traceback Group (“ITG”) as the FCC’s official consortium for coordinating efforts to trace illegal robocalls.
The ITG is a collaboration of wireline, wireless, VoIP and cable industry companies, led by USTelecom, with the mission of tracing and identifying the source of illegal robocalls. According to the ITG, it conducted more than 1,000 trace-back operations in 2019 and unmasked the source of more than 10 million robocalls.

The FCC and the consortium have worked together for the past few years to develop a trace-back process to assist the FCC’s enforcement of illegal robocalls. According to the FCC, in April, the ITG helped identify a number of gateway providers that were aiding COVID-19 scam calls originating from overseas.
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guest · Aug 4, 2020

Robocall Legal Advocate Leaks Customer Data
August 3, 2020
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/08/robocall-legal-advocate-leaks-customer-data/

A California company that helps telemarketing firms avoid getting sued for violating a federal law that seeks to curb robocalls has leaked the phone numbers, email addresses and passwords of all its customers, as well as the mobile phone numbers and other data on people who have hired lawyers to go after telemarketers.

The Blacklist Alliance provides technologies and services to marketing firms concerned about lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a 1991 law that restricts the making of telemarketing calls through the use of automatic telephone dialing systems and artificial or prerecorded voice messages.
Unfortunately for the Blacklist paying customers and for people represented by attorneys filing TCPA lawsuits, the Blacklist’s own Web site until late last week leaked reams of data to anyone with a Web browser.

The irony of this data leak is that marketers who constantly scrape the Web for consumer contact data may not realize the source of the information, and end up feeding it into automated systems that peddle dubious wares and services via automated phone calls and text messages.
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Robocalls are permitted for political candidates, but beyond that if the recording is a sales message and you haven’t given your written permission to get calls from the company on the other end, the call is illegal. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), companies are using auto-dialers to send out thousands of phone calls every minute for an incredibly low cost.

For my part, the volume of automated calls hitting my mobile number got so bad that I recently enabled a setting on my smart phone to simply send to voicemail all calls from numbers that aren’t already in my contacts list. This may not be a solution for everyone, but since then I haven’t received a single spammy jingle.
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ronjor · Aug 12, 2020

Why robocalls are still a thing -- and why there's hope they'll end

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Wed August 12, 2020
New York (CNN Business)As if there wasn't already enough to worry about right now, Americans are still being bombarded by annoying (and sometimes illegal) robocalls.
Although the number of robocalls received in the United States dipped in the early months of the pandemic, the numbers have started to tick back up, as coronavirus-related restrictions are eased and call centers around the world re-open.
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guest · Aug 17, 2020

Robocall Results from a Telephony Honeypot
August 17, 2020
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/08/robocall_result.html

A group of researchers set up a telephony honeypot and tracked robocall behavior:

NCSU researchers said they ran 66,606 telephone lines between March 2019 and January 2020, during which time they said to have received 1,481,201 unsolicited calls -- even if they never made their phone numbers public via any source.

The research team said they usually received an unsolicited call every 8.42 days, but most of the robocall traffic came in sudden surges they called "storms" that happened at regular intervals, suggesting that robocallers operated using a tactic of short-burst and well-organized campaigns.

In total, the NCSU team said it tracked 650 storms over 11 months, with most storms being of the same size.
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Who's Calling? Characterizing Robocalls through Audio and Metadata Analysis

guest · Aug 18, 2020

FTC Sends Refund Checks Totaling More Than $700,000 to Small Business Owners Defrauded by Deceptive Robocalls
August 18, 2020
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...nd-checks-totaling-more-700000-small-business

The Federal Trade Commission is mailing refunds totaling more than $700,000 to small business owners who were deceived by a robocall scheme.

According to the FTC, the defendants, operating as Pointbreak Media, Modern Spotlight, National Business Listings, and Modern Source Media, called small business owners, claimed to be acting on Google’s behalf, and threatened that Google would label their businesses “permanently closed” unless they spoke with a “Google specialist.”
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The FTC is sending refunds to 4,467 small business owners with an average refund amount of $158.32. Those who receive checks should deposit or cash their checks within 60 days.
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