Recent Telecommunications News
- November 1, 2021: Reassigned Numbers Database. The Federal Communication Commission's (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: 5 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 Federal Trade Commission (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.
- December 30, 2020: FCC Places Additional Limits on Robocalls and Requires Phone Companies to Better Police Networks. Amended rules limit certain callers to three calls per month and provide additional incentives for carriers to block illegal robocalls.
- December 23, 2020: FCC Submits TRACED Act Annual Report 2020 to Congress. Downward trend in Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations. Increase in FCC, FTC and Department of Justice enforcements against service providers.
- December 3, 2020: FTC Takes Action Against Second VoIP Service Provider for Facilitating Illegal Telemarketing Robocalls. “These defendants acted as a gatekeeper, introducing tens of millions of illegal calls into the U.S. — including robocalls and other calls that impersonated 911 emergency numbers or the government,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC and our law enforcement partners will not tolerate VoIP providers and other companies that assist and facilitate illegal robocallers and scammers.”
- November 30, 2020: FCC Acts to Protect Consumers from One-Ring Scams. New rules, implements a portion of the TRACED Act to enable service providers to block illegal call traffic from numbers associated with a one-ring scam before they reach consumers' phones.
- November 4, 2020: Security Summit Partners Warn Taxpayers of New COVID-Related Text Scam. People who receive this text scam should take a screen shot of the text message that they received and then include the screenshot in an email to phishing@irs.gov with the following information: date/time/time zone that they received the text message, the number that appeared on their caller ID, and the number that received the text message. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does not send unsolicited texts or emails. The IRS does not call people with threats of jail or lawsuits, nor does it demand tax payments on gift cards.
- October 27, 2020: FTC Releases Fiscal Year 2020 National DNC Registry Data Book. Imposter calls top list of complaint topics (again).
- September 30, 2020: Robocall traceback in the U.S. — ever wonder how it works? Here’s an overview. The USTelecom Industry Traceback Group (ITG) has become increasingly effective in speeding up the traceback of illegal robocalls.
- September 29, 2020: FCC Takes More Steps to Combat Spoofed Robocalls. New rules promote caller ID authentication across America's phone networks.
- September 29, 2020: FTC, State and Federal Law Enforcement Partners Announce Nationwide Crackdown on Phantom and Abusive Debt Collection.
- July 27, 2020: FCC Designates USTelecom’s Industry Traceback Group (ITG) as Official Consortium, Robocall Traceback Manager. Better TRACEBACK is on the way! Who Is the Industry Traceback Group (ITG)?
- July 24, 2020: Scammers Who Used Robocalls to Target Cash-Strapped Consumers Banned from Selling Debt Relief Services and Telemarketing. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services provides assistance in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) case against Florida-based company. The proposed order settling the FTC charges permanently bans the defendants from, among other things: 1) any involvement in the sale of debt-relief products or services; 2) all telemarketing; 3) applying for any product or service on behalf of a consumer without their knowledge and consent or if the defendants know or have reason to believe any of the information on the application is false or misleading; 4) obtaining a cash advance on a consumer’s credit card or submitting billing information for payment without prior approval; and 5) using or benefiting from any consumer information collected through the scheme.
- July 16, 2020: FCC Encourages Blocking of Illegal and Unwanted Robocalls. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today adopted rules to further encourage phone companies to block illegal and unwanted robocalls before they reach consumers.
- June 10, 2020: FCC proposes a $225 million fine against Rising Eagle, a Texas-based telemarketer that apparently made over 1 billion health insurance sales robocalls to American consumers including many on the Do Not Call registry.
- May 4, 2020: Attorneys General Join Effort to Expand Illegal Robocall Response. The National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter today calling on USTelecom — the leading organization representing telecommunications providers — and its Industry Traceback Group (ITG) to continue their collaboration with state attorneys general by bolstering technological capabilities to improve enforcement against illegal robocallers.
- May 1, 2020: FCC Adopts Rules Strengthening Enforcement Against Illegal Robocallers. The FCC issued an order to end the practice of warning most robocallers before issuing penalties for violating the law and for harassing consumers with unwanted robocalls. Such warnings were previously required by law until the TRACED Act was enacted.
- March 31, 2020: FCC’s Ajit Pai’s Statement: "In today’s Order, we therefore mandate that all originating and terminating voice service providers implement the STIR/SHAKEN framework in the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their network by June 30, 2021, a deadline that is consistent with the TRACED Act, which was recently passed by Congress."
- March 27, 2020: FTC Warns Nine VoIP Service Providers and Other Companies against ‘Assisting and Facilitating’ Illegal Coronavirus-related Telemarketing Calls. FTC 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.
- Feb. 4, 2020: FCC Moves to Bolster Efforts to Trace Robocalls Back to International Fraudsters and Proposes New Traceback Partnership Rules. FCC proposes rules for Traceback, a process to trace back the origin of suspected unlawful call traffic.
- Jan. 30, 2020: FTC Warns 19 VoIP Service Providers That 'Assisting and Facilitating' Illegal Telemarketing or Robocalling Is Against the Law. FTC sends letters to VoIP providers, warning that "assisting and facilitating" illegal calls is against the law.
- Jan. 28, 2020: The Department of Justice (DOJ) Files Actions to Stop Telecom Carriers Who Facilitated Hundreds of Millions of Fraudulent Robocalls to American Consumers. DOJ enforcement of "Gateway" VoIP providers, entry point for foreign-initiated calls into the U.S. telecommunications system.
- Dec. 30, 2019: Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED Act). Federal Public Law 116-105, TRACED Act, requires the telecommunications industry to speed up its adaptation of "call authentication technologies" to verify that incoming calls are legitimate and requires that certain calls be blocked before ever reaching consumers.
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.
