FCC Seeking $120 Million Fine for Massive Spoofed Robocall Operation

million spoofed robocalls in Q3 and ultimately made hundreds of millions of such calls. It said the fine was for violations of the Truth in Caller ID Act, with Abramovich using "neighbor spoofing" -- making it appear they were coming from phone numbers in the same area code and the first three digits of the recipient's phone number -- and purportedly selling vacation deals from travel and hospitality companies such as TripAdvisor, Expedia and Marriott. People who answered the calls were apparently transferred to foreign call centers that often tried to instead sell vacation packages involving time shares. The agency said the hospitality and travel companies weren't affiliated with the call centers. It said TripAdvisor contacted the FCC last year after receiving complaints. It said medical paging service Spok complained in 2015 about a major robocalling event disrupting its emergency paging service -- an event that was traced to Abramovich's Marketing Strategy Leaders. The bureau said the fine is based on 80,000 calls it reviewed. Chairman Ajit Pai said it was the first FCC large-scale spoofing enforcement action under the act. The enforcement action was approved Thursday 3-0, and multiple robocall items are on the July commissioners' meeting agenda, announced Thursday (see 1706220050). The bureau said Abramovich has 30 days to respond. The agency Thursday issued a citation to Abramovich for apparent violations of Telephone Consumer Protection Act robocall limits and federal wire fraud statute. He couldn't be reached for comment. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, concurring, said Abramovich had an intent to defraud, likely not an intent to harm. He defended some manifestations of neighborhood spoofing: "There are positive aspects of VoIP that allow a consumer to use a local telephone number and I don't want to see that wiped out. It's not all bad."