FCC Fines Company $37.5M For Spoofing Calls
“On Tuesday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it fined Affordable Enterprises of Arizona $37.5 million for making at least 2.3 million illegal spoofed telemarketing calls in a 14-month period starting in 2016 in violation of the Truth in Caller ID Act,” reports Kirsten Errick in Law Street Media’s Tech News.
“According to the FCC, the company either used unassigned phone numbers or phone numbers that in most cases ‘belonged to innocent Arizona consumers and placed them in the caller ID of their telemarketing calls.’ As a result of this purported conduct, Affordable Enterprises of Arizona ‘was able to appear to be calling from local phone numbers and to avoid receiving angry callbacks when making spoofed telemarketing calls to sell home improvement and remodeling services.’ Moreover, the FCC stated that the caller ID was manipulated to appear to come from a number not connected to the company. Additionally, calls also came from pre-paid ‘burner phones’. Regardless, Affordable Enterprises of Arizona allegedly spoofed the caller ID, so consumers were not able to correctly identify the caller.”
