The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing two companies and their owner for making billions of robocalls in an alleged scam to sell services and products to unsuspecting victims.
“This case shows that the FTC will keep using every tool it has to fight illegal robocalls,” Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Andrew Smith said in a statement Tuesday. “We will go after not only robocallers, but also companies — like these — who give robocallers the platform and tools to deceive the public and violate the law.”
Defendant James “Jamie” Christiano, along with his California-based companies NetDotSolutions, Inc. and TeraMESH Networks, Inc., is accused of facilitating over four billion illegal calls. The calls allegedly used illegal prerecorded messages, called “robocalls,” to sell extended auto warranties, home security systems, debt relief services, search engine optimization, and other goods and services. Andrew Salisbury, a business partner of Christiano, is also named in the lawsuit, which was filed on May 31.
The FTC described Christiano’s software to conduct the robocalls, “TelWeb,” as a “one-stop-shop for illegal telemarketers.”
“At least one billon of those robocalls were programmed to transfer to a call center run by the other set of defendants in this case, Defendant Andrew ‘Andy’ Salisbury and his call center businesses all named World Connection,” federal court filings reveal.
The FTC says the scam was able to conduct 883 million robocalls on average per year between January 2014 and May 2016, which included an average of 154 million to numbers that were on the National Do Not Call Registry, donotcall.gov.
The lawsuit follows the federal government’s continued crackdown on robocall scams. The Federal Communications Committee (FCC) fined a Florida man a record-breaking $120 million fine to Adrian Abramovich on May 10. (RELATED: FCC Issues $120M Fine To The Man Behind Some Of Those Annoying Robocalls)
In that case, Abramovich was accused of conducting billions of robocalls that aimed to scam victims into purchasing fake vacation deals.
“Tough enforcement is a key part of the FCC’s robust strategy for combating illegal robocalls, and this Forfeiture Order represents a big step forward in our enforcement efforts,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said on May 10. “This is the largest illegal robocalling scheme that the FCC has investigated to date, and we are appropriately imposing a $120 million forfeiture in response.”
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