That guy who’d been robocalling for 3 months for health insurance just got fined $82 million
In 2016 over a three month period Philip Roesel’s company made more than 200,000 spoofed calls every day selling health insurance. The phone calls he would make called ID spoofed local exchange numbers tricking many into believing it was someone they knew.
It also made it next to impossible to report them to donotcall.gov as very very few people have the ability to go much further than what’s displayed on the caller ID.
Some cut and paste by a press release:
Scott Goldsmith is a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney who routinely defends clients in nationwide class litigation. Of the news he says:
Call spoofing can be a burden on consumers and businesses alike. Law-abiding business spend significant resources responding to complaints by individuals who receive deceptive calls from ‘spoofers’ pretending to call on their behalf. With this latest fine, Chairman Pai is making good on his promise to take a firm stance against such deception.
Chairman Pai has made clear the FCC will not tolerate callers who use caller ID “spoofing” with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongfully obtain anything of value. With the FCC’s record breaking $120 million fine against an alleged call spoofer in May and now this, Chairman Pai is keeping his word.
The FCC is making call spoofing an expensive gambit. The FCC issued a record breaking $120 million fine against an alleged call spoofer in May and has followed up with a blockbuster $82 million fine today.
So yeah, if you notice that 80% of your spam calls drop today, this may be the reason. I noticed this morning most of my incoming spam calls had no message attached. Maybe that’s why.