Nuisance calls on cell phone

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday issued about $120 million worth of fines to two robocallers accused of spoofing real people's phone numbers. In one of the cases, the robocaller made 21 million calls overall and told the FCC that he spoofed real people's numbers in Caller ID in order to avoid angry call-backs to his own phone. In the other case, the FCC said the robocaller made 2.3 million calls including 48,349 that spoofed the number of a single person. That unlucky person ended up getting about five angry call-backs a day for two months, the FCC said. In the first case, the FCC fined telemarketer Philip Roesel and his companies more than $82 million. This is the same amount that the FCC proposed to fine Roesel a year ago—as is standard, the commission gave him a chance to respond before making the decision final. Roesel and his companies made more than 21 million robocalls from late 2016 to early 2017 attempting to sell health insurance, the FCC said. Roesel … [Read more...] about Robocaller spoofed real numbers to avoid angry call-backs to his own phone

Federal judges have struck down an anti-robocall rule, saying that the Federal Communications Commission improperly treated every American who owns a smartphone as a potential robocaller. The FCC won't be appealing the court decision, as Chairman Ajit Pai opposed the rule changes when they were implemented by the commission's then-Democratic majority in 2015. Pai issued a statement praising the judges for the decision Friday, calling the now-vacated rule "yet another example of the prior FCC’s disregard for the law and regulatory overreach." The FCC's 2015 decision said that a device meets the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) definition of an "autodialer" if it can be modified to make robocalls, even if the smartphone user hasn't actually downloaded an autodialing app. That interpretation treats all smartphones as autodialers because any smartphone has the capability of downloading an autodialing app, judges ruled. Since any call made by an autodialer could … [Read more...] about Ajit Pai celebrates after court strikes down Obama-era robocall rule