FCC Proposes $120 Million Fine On Florida Robocall Scammer (reuters.com) 80
The FCC on Thursday proposed a $120 million fine on a Florida resident alleged to have made almost 100 million spoofed robocalls to trick consumers with "exclusive" vacation deals from well-known travel and hospitality companies. Reuters reports: The man, identified as Adrian Abramovich, allegedly made 96 million robocalls during a three-month period by falsifying caller identification information that matched the local area code and the first three digits of recipient's phone number, the FCC said. The calls, which were in violation of the U.S. telecommunications laws, offered vacation deals from companies such as Marriott International Inc, Expedia Inc, Hilton Inc and TripAdvisor Inc. Consumers who answered the calls were transferred to foreign call centers that tried to sell vacation packages, often involving timeshares. These call centers were not related to the companies, the FCC said.
$120 million for one scammer (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:$120 million for one scammer (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is because of government involvement. If we just let free market sort this out the problem would go away, everyone would just switch to a communications company that did not have spammers. ;-p
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The douche pickles that don't hang up as soon as the robot puts them on hold are the problem. They ARE the target market and they're already free to fuck things up for the rest of us.
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Electric chair the scab
P R I S O N _ T I M E ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Great, a hefty fine is a good idea. But if he's not in prison for this, you might as well make it legal and tax it - this is a drop in the bucket.
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Re:P R I S O N _ T I M E ? (Score:4, Funny)
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Everyone he called has the right to 5 minutes with him. Unsupervised.
Or is that in violation of the 8th?
yesterday, a Florida resident allegedly (Score:3)
Oh hi! (Score:2)
I was just adjusting my headset. How are you today?
I definitely got called by this guy (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been getting Marriott Hotel calls w/my area code, sometimes 2-3x daily on my business phone line. Fucking annoying and such a time/concentration waster, even with a callblocker (as it obviously spoofs a different number each time). I hope this guy gets what's coming to him.
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I have been getting calls too..... EIGHT of them. I thought it really odd I would get calls from a local number with the same first three digits as mine. Of course I never answered any of them. But that might explain what happened.
However, ALL robocallers should be fined, not just those who spoof. Better yet, ALL marketing callers AND pollsters AND political party callers. Stop invading my space, irritating me, and wasting my time.
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I get something similar but for healthcare. Always uses the same area code and prefix of my number. Today I pressed 1 for a live person and they asked about healthcare. I told them to take me off the list and they hung up. Next time I'm going to start sexually harassing them.
Forgot to grease the right palms... (Score:1)
Clearly this guy forgot to grease the right palms like having a membership at Mar-a-Lago...
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Clearly this guy forgot to grease the right palms like having a membership at Mar-a-Lago...
So what you're saying is that he was paying off the Obamas up until a few months ago? Don't be coy. Say what you mean. You think that Obama was taking cash from a robocall scammer.
Illegal? Yes. Too harsh? Even more so... (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless the scammer made $120M in profits, this goes a little beyond punitive.
It's too bad net neutrality doesn't get this kind of strong support.
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Re:Illegal? Yes. Too harsh? Even more so... (Score:5, Insightful)
>"$120,000,000 for 100M calls? That's $1.20 per call.Unless the scammer made $120M in profits, this goes a little beyond punitive."
Sorry, but that sounds about right to me. He irritated people over 100 million times. That is a lot of bad. The problem is that they rarely fine anyone and rarely collect any of it, anyway.
If they do, they should use all that money to hunt down and destroy as many marketing, spam, political, and robocallers as possible. Or perhaps use the money to force the stupid carriers out there to NOT ALLOW SPOOFING LIKE THIS.
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Re:Illegal? Yes. Too harsh? Even more so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Illegal? Yes. Too harsh? Even more so... (Score:5, Interesting)
$120,000,000 for 100M calls? That's $1.20 per call.
Unless the scammer made $120M in profits, this goes a little beyond punitive.
That's cheap as hell, considering calling a number listed on the do not call registry can be up to $40,000 per violation.
Yes, that's $40k times potentially 100 million calls, or $4 trillion in fines assuming he only called each person just once, which isn't actually the case.
I have over 50 such calls in my phones call history over the past 5-6 months.
While it is unlikely to all be from this one single person, this is still two million dollars in violation fees from just on my one phone alone.
He was very aware of the fines for the actions he knew were criminal.
Beyond punitive? This is barely a slap on the wrist.
Re:Illegal? Yes. Too harsh? Even more so... (Score:4, Informative)
The law says the robocaller can be liable for much more than that. He's getting off easy.
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Unless the scammer made $120M in profits, this goes a little beyond punitive.
So scam artists who attempt large scale fraud but who fail to make a profit shouldn't be fined?
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I fail to see the problem. Sell his organs for all I care.
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I don't think you understand what punitive damages are. Fining someone more than the amount of profit they made or damage they did is literally the definition of punitive [cornell.edu].
Just give me 5 minutes... (Score:1)
Legalize the televised breaking of bones as punishment for scammers then give me 5 minutes and a Louisville Slugger to make an example of this scum bag... calls like these would drop in half overnight.
Re: Just give me 5 minutes... (Score:2)
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It was still racist. On a scale from black to white, this was at least Mexican.
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No. Fists only.
There's nearly a 100 million who want a piece of him, too. Don't be selfish, learn to share with others.
Telcos should be slammed for letting it happen (Score:3, Informative)
Functionality exists within the telephone system to id and block spoofed caller id calls before they get to the subscriber line. Telcos are loathe to spend any cash to shore up security on a system that no longer makes a profit. My local provider responded to complaints with an offer to sell me security features none of which were of any real help.
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T-mo does this now. Dial #662# to enable and #632# to turn it off. Works great. Its free,
Best call blocker I've found (Score:2)
It was a text message from straighttalk (my cellphone) I gave it a try, out of my call history it marked many as scammers, robocalls; and caught any calls after that. It can be found here http://extras.straighttalk.com... [straighttalk.com]
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Not how 911 works (Score:2)
Caller ID is not what 911 uses to track you. It's a separate message you can't spoof called ANI/ALI. [vancecounty.org]
Now that being said, why can't they use ANI/ALI to actually locate the scammers and go after them?
He'll be hired by congress (Score:3)
He's got the infrastructure to do what our duly elected "representatives" want to be illegal for everyone but themselves. I can see a public finger-wagging then a very lucrative job offer from the *.* Nat'l Committee (fill in your favorite party).
Alternatively, a job with the CIA and unleash his system on the Russians. How'd ya like them apples vladimir.
Happy Dude At It Again! (Score:1)
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At that rate? As long as you only have to give part of your loot to the government, and even that only when you get caught, you'd be stupid not to do it.
I think he may still be at it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just received a call a few hours ago with my area code and the same as my trunk (first three digits) offering me something about Hilton. I totally hung up before listening to the scam. But it's interesting that this is still going on. Is it the same guy, or are there copycats now?
End Spoofing (Score:2)
If you have a legitimate need to spoof a number (multiple business lines, etc.), you can get a waiver with a documented reason why. All others, nope.
Oh so it was this asshole (Score:2)
I got a whole bunch of those calls. Sometimes there would be voicemails left and the associated voicemail number wouldn't match that of the incoming call. It was always the same message with the same female voice.
This asshole called me today (Jun 22) (Score:2)
Same Area Code and prefix as my cell phone. Caller started talking about vacation, and I hung up immediately.
So whatever the Feds are doing, IT'S NOT WORKING YET!
It's very simple. (Score:1)
If you have nothing else to do then go through the prompts (they're total voice-rec) until you get a person, speak slowly and wait forever. Just annoy the fuck out of them and waste their time.
This shit will get a lot more expensive for them. I sometimes tell the operator I think there is a government reward if they report them to the government but maybe I'm wrong.
Execute him! (Score:2)
It is 2017 (Score:2)
Theyv'e got to stop these fake calls (Score:1)
I'm getting called constantly by fake caller id's lately. And so are my friends.
3 to 5 calls a day. They leave voice mail and eat up my voice mail box.
It's a problem.
I tried answering, saying hello and then ignoring it to max their downtime.
lately I just answer then immediately hang up (to prevent the voice mail).