DOJ Puts Stop to Telecom Carriers Facilitating Robocall Fraud

Robocall fraud is a very serious crime that continues to plague callers on the receiving end who answer the phone only to find a recorded message instead of a live person.

According to the FTC, the reason a lot of the unsolicited calls are making their way to the phones of unsuspecting victims is that it is “cheap and easy for scammers and telemarketers to make robocalls over the internet from anywhere in the world.”  This is also why the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is cracking down on those telecom carriers who are facilitating the transmissions of the calls to U.S. Consumers.

According to a report from Security Magazine,  the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has issued orders in two different civil actions that bar up to 8 individuals and their entities from allowing these calls to continue to happen.

In both cases, the use of VoIP networks to transmit the calls into U.S. phones has been completely barred or pending completion of the civil action.

The complaints allege that the defendants in these cases were working as VoIP carriers and would receive calls via the internet from international locations and then transmit them to the phones of callers. Many of these calls coming in were fraudulent overseas robocalls looking for victims in the U.S. as well as other fraud schemes with these calls.

Many of these calls being made would target victims such as the elderly and other more vulnerable populations requesting social security numbers and posing as government officials or threatening imminent arrest and other schemes.

The FTC continues to bring enforcement actions against robocallers and has already stopped those responsible for billions of robocalls.“The court’s decision sends a clear message to gateway carriers who knowingly do business with scammers targeting Americans from overseas,” Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for the Social Security Administration was quoted as saying in the report. “We will continue to pursue those who facilitate these scam calls by allowing them into the U.S. telephone network. I want to thank the Department of Justice for its support throughout this investigation and its commitment to protecting Americans from this insidious form of fraud and theft.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle