One alleged spoofer commandeered active consumer phone numbers
Daily Letters
The 26th of September was a busy day for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Where to begin? The FCC eliminated outdated cable data collection forms, approved a looser regulatory approach for 5G technology and proposed rules to help the public access 911 services quickly and easily.
Standing out from all this action, however, are two major telecom-related announcements, both of which include notable fines.
Spoof or Farce?
First up was the case of Philip Roesel and his companies, which, the FCC alleges, placed a staggering 21 million robocalls to market health insurance services. Aside from the content and permission issues raised by this volume of telemarketing, the FCC's attention was drawn to what it claims was a massive spoofing scheme, in which Roesel deliberately falsified his caller ID information to avoid consumer complaints.
The complaint was originally lodged against Roesel about a year ago. He responded that he did not know that he was causing harm, and that he did not receive value "wrongfully" from his deception.
The FCC stuck to its guns: Roesel faces $82 million in fines, which the commission claims is one of the "largest forfeitures ever imposed by the agency."
Wolf in Sheep's Calling
Falsifying caller IDs is bad enough. But the commission claims that Affordable Enterprises of Arizona (AEA) took it one step further: It alleges that the company used real people's phone numbers for its fake identity. This is the first time the FCC has tackled a case in which the accused stole consumers' phone IDs.
The commission alleges that AEA made more than 2 million calls between 2016 and 2017 that appeared to originate from consumers, unassigned numbers and "burner" phones. One alleged victim received angry calls to her cellphone complaining about autodialed calls that seemed to originate from her number.
The FCC proposed a $37.5 million fine for the company, which was hawking home improvement services. The company still has time to respond before the punishment is finalized.
The Takeaway
These two cases show that the commission is ramping up its anti-spoofing efforts in response to a practice that has become a serious nuisance.
According to the FCC's recent update on the Do Not Call registry, technological advances like voice over internet protocol have enabled scammers to make an unprecedented number of calls at little expense. Other technical advances have made spoofing calls ‒ hiding the identity of the originating caller through fake caller ID ‒ easier than ever. The combined effect has been an explosion of fake calls.
A little more than a year ago, the commission lobbed a $120 million fine at a Florida corporation that made over 100 million calls that were spoofed to appear to be phone numbers local to the intended consumer targets. Along with the Roesel fine described above, this demonstrates that the commission means business.
Furthermore, in the case of AEA, the investigation was inspired by reports from a former-employee-turned whistleblower ‒ and proceeded in coordination with the Federal Trade Commission. The lasso may be tightening around accused spoofers and robocallers; it's a warning for companies that engage in telemarketing to carefully audit their efforts.
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