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The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday fined $ 82 million to a telemarketer who made over 21 million unsolicited calls to consumers in an attempt to sell health insurance and generate leads.
Over a three-month period beginning in late 2016, Philip Roesel and his companies made more than 200,000 calls each day, according to the FCC, using a technique known as spoofing. the caller uses.
"By spoofing his caller ID information, Mr. Roesel prevented consumers from registering complaints and law enforcement authorities from tracking and investigating." stop illegal calls, "the FCC said in a statement. According to the agency, such behavior causes significant harm to consumers.
The FCC has not indicated the amount that Roesel was drawing from its appeal system, but President Ajit Pai said in a statement: "It was impossible to believe that it would have generated the same volume of prospects over 21 million unlawful fraudulent calls.
Roesel, who is based in North Carolina, did not immediately respond to requests for comments made through his company, Wilmington Insurance Quotes. He claimed that the FCC had not proven its intent to harm consumers and that any value received from the calls had not been obtained wrongly, according to the FCC. The agency concluded that "the evidence did not support these allegations".
In the communiqué announcing the fine, Mr. Pai noted that in nearly half of the FCC meetings in which he served as chairman, the agency voted to take action against illegal calls. Pai said he had made the fight against Robo's illegal calls the priority of the FCC in terms of consumer protection. Certain types of pre-recorded telephone messages for households and individuals are permitted, such as information calls from schools and pharmacies. But pre-recorded sales calls are illegal unless a company has the consumer's permission.
Despite the enhanced enforcement, the number of fraudulent calls should however increase significantly. Almost According to First Orion, a company that provides telephone companies and their customers with call identification and call blocking tools, half of next year's calls will come from scammers. Federal officials attribute the peak of telephone calls to dialers, which can result in a considerable number of phone calls quickly and at low cost.
Government regulators have allowed telephone operators to block calls that may be illegal to prevent unwanted telemarketing. The telephone operators are also developing a system for authenticating calls to combat identity theft.
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