Four robocalling companies has recently been shut down and settled lawsuits with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC announced the news yesterday, claiming that the groups made billions of illegal prerecorded calls to phones across the US. Now, they’ve agreed to pay several million dollars and cease operations. It’s a noteworthy step, but it’s only one small piece of solving the robocall problem.
The FTC filed suits against the four companies are: NetDotSolutions, Higher Goals Marketing, Veterans of America, and Pointbreak Media.
The settlements bar these companies owners from running other robocalling and in some cases, any telemarketing operations. They also impose fines that range from roughly $500,000 to $3.64 million.
FTC consumer protection bureau head Andrew Smith said in a statement that fighting unwanted calls remains one of our highest priorities.
The FTC and Federal Communications Commission both regularly fine robocallers, and FCC chairman Ajit Pai recently warned mobile carriers that the agency will take action if they don’t implement a caller ID system to screen out spoofed numbers. But auto-dialing systems are cheap and easy to set up, and, for now, neither agencies nor carriers have found a way to really stop illegal robocalls.
