Robocall Scams: FTC Targets Telemarketing Fraudsters in New Operation

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) building is seen in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19, 2006. Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a nationwide operation targeting illegal telemarketing calls as well as taking action against activities that employ deceptive tactics to collect people’s phone numbers.

“We are taking action against those who trick people into phony consent to receive these calls and those who make it easy and cheap to place these calls,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a July 18 statement.

According to the agency, “Today’s actions make clear that third-party lead generation for robocalls is illegal under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) and that the FTC and its partners are committed to stopping illegal calls by targeting anyone in the telemarketing ecosystem that assists and facilitates these calls, including [voice over internet protocol] service providers.”

A robocall is a phone call during which the receiver hears a recorded message instead of speaking with a person. They’re usually done for sales purposes, with many of them in the scams category.

Under “Operation Stop Scam Calls,” the FTC has collaborated with more than 100 state and federal law enforcement partners across the United States, including attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The operation aims to take action against telemarketers and companies that “deceptively collect and provide consumers’ telephone numbers to robocallers and others, falsely representing that these consumers have consented to receive calls,” according to the July 18 statement.

According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), U.S. consumers receive about 4 billion robocalls every month.

An FTC report in February revealed that 294,659 Americans were defrauded in 2022 through “phone call” scams—with victims losing $798 million in total.

The median amount lost by a victim of a phone scam was $1,400—the highest among the eight categories listed in the report, which include text messages, emails, websites, mail, and online ads.

The agency has filed 167 cases against illegal robocallers and Do Not Call violators, and courts have ordered the defendants to pay more than $2 billion in these cases.

The FTC has collected more than $394 million from the defendants, and much of the money is being used to provide refunds to customers who’ve been victims of fraud.

“Today, government agencies at all levels are united in fighting the scourge of illegal telemarketing,” Mr. Levine said.

Identifying Telemarketing Scams

There are some warning signs that can indicate that a caller is a telemarketing scammer, according to a consumer alert issued by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

Beware of calls in which you’re asked for financial information to confirm your identity, calls from a stranger who’s seeking help to transfer money out of a foreign nation, calls that include a claim that you’ve won a free gift or prize but then ask you to pay a fee or attend a presentation, and calls that offer a limited-time offer.

To avoid unwanted telemarketing calls, people can add their phone numbers to the FTC’s national Do Not Call registry by either registering their number at donotcall.gov or by calling 888-382-1222.

More than 2.5 million people signed up for the Do Not Call registry in fiscal year 2022, bringing the total number of phone numbers in the database to more than 246 million, according to a November 2022 statement from the FTC.

While adding a number to the registry can help to prevent telemarketing calls, it isn’t 100 percent guaranteed. Telemarketers can still use loopholes and contact such numbers.

As such, in addition to placing the phone number in the Do Not Call registry, people can also make use of other solutions such as using a blocking service. These apps are offered by telephone service providers and block potentially unwanted calls such as those from anonymous numbers.

FTC Telemarketing Scam Cases

In the July 18 statement, the FTC also listed five new illegal telemarketing cases that have come under the purview of Operation Stop Scam Calls.

One case is about a company called Fluent LLC that tricked consumers into receiving marketing solicitations. The company operated as a “consent farm lead generator,” claiming to secure people’s agreement to receive marketing solicitation, including telemarketing calls.

The company and its affiliates used “deceptive ads” that falsely promised employment opportunities or free valuable items. The ads directed people to a website that tricked them into providing personal information as well as consent to receive marketing calls. Fluent is said to have obtained and sold more than 620 million telemarketing leads.

Another case is related to a solar company called Vision Solar. Falsely claiming to be affiliated with a government agency or utility firm, the firm’s telemarketers placed tens of millions of calls to consumers who'd signed up for the Do Not Call registry.

The telemarketers then misrepresented to the people that they could expect to save an amount of money on their energy bills if they bought and installed solar panels.