FCC Hits Robocaller With $120 Million Fine for Spoofing, Over Partial O'Rielly Dissent
The FCC fined telemarketer Adrian Abramovich $120 million for "malicious spoofing" in a "massive robocalling operation aimed at selling timeshares and other travel packages," which the agency said was the largest "forfeiture" in its history. The commission found Abramovich, of Miami, or his companies spoofed 96 million calls over three months in 2016 "to trick" consumers into listening to advertising pitches, violating a Truth in Caller ID Act prohibition against callers "deliberately falsifying caller ID information with the intent to harm or defraud consumers or unlawfully obtain something of value," said a release. Commissioners approved a forfeiture order at Thursday's meeting, with Commissioner Michael O'Rielly partially dissenting.
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"Tough enforcement is a key part of the FCC's robust strategy for combatting illegal robocalls," said Chairman Ajit Pai. "This is the largest illegal robocalling scheme that the FCC has investigated."
The commission in June issued a notice of apparent liability proposing the $120 million fine (see 1706220046). Abramovich through counsel denied "any intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongfully obtain anything of value," and he personally denied wrongdoing, at a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing (see 1804180066). Abramovich sought "a significant reduction" in the fine partly due to "absolute inability" to make the $120 million payment, said his counsel's response to the FCC (attached to Senate testimony). Abramovich's counsel didn't comment Thursday.
The FCC rejected Abramovich's arguments and said he used "neighborhood spoofing" -- area codes and local number prefixes -- to encourage consumers to answer calls with messages purportedly from companies such as Marriott, Expedia, Hilton and TripAdvisor offering travel deals. Consumers were connected to foreign call-center operators selling vacation packages, often timeshares, unrelated to the companies. The commission received numerous complaints from consumers and from companies such as TripAdvisor, and from medical paging provider Spok, which said its network and hospital communications were disrupted.
O'Rielly backed the fine and agreed Abramovich intended to defraud consumers, disagreeing it was shown he intended to harm individuals or businesses: "From what I can tell, his intent was to make a buck ... as many bucks as possible." The FCC should "not rely on circumstantial intent to harm theory," he said. Commissioner Brendan Carr said Abramovich "not only defrauded consumers but harmed the reputation of those legitimate businesses" and "endangered public safety by overwhelming an emergency paging service."
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the public is "drowning" in robocalls, 3.4 billion in April. "This is insane," she said. She said the FCC should take other steps by: responding to a partial court reversal of a 2015 Telephone Consumer Protection Act order and revisiting the definition of autodialers (see 1803160053); addressing 20 pending petitions; putting on the books "missing" rules the FCC adopted in 2015 under a budget act; and implementing a "Shaken/Stir" (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) call authentication framework.
Pai said fighting "the scourge of unwanted robocalls" is the FCC's top consumer protection priority, and the agency is "getting results." Noting Abramovich testified he ceased telemarketing operations after the proposed penalty, Pai told reporters the commission's "aggressive enforcement action" played a role. He recognized "there's much more to do," and said the FCC is working to update its rules and "close any gaps" in consumer protections, and is thankful Congress recently expanded the commission's authority to target spoofed calls from overseas. The agency will do "everything we can" in rulemakings and enforcement to give consumers robocall relief, he said.
"USTelecom and our industry partners stand ready to support bringing these bad actors to justice and imposing criminal enforcement action when appropriate," CEO Jonathan Spalter said.
Also at the commissioners' meeting, an FM translator interference NPRM got a 4-0 vote: 1805100057; so did an NPRM on ways to spark interest in the 2.5 GHz band: 1805100053.
Robocall Notebook
The FCC should require VoIP providers to adopt "Shaken/Stir" call authentication standards within a year, said Henning Schulzrinne, Columbia University computer science professor and member of a call authentication working group. He wrote a minority report to a North American Numbering Council report to the commission (see 1805030014). Shaken/Stir are protocols and procedures for authenticating calls and combating call spoofing and illegal robocalling. "Economic incentives and historical precedents for other Internet security technologies make it unlikely that STIR/SHAKEN calling number authentication will be deployed at sufficient scale without a firm deadline and mandate," Schulzrinne filed Wednesday in docket 17-59 on a meeting with Chief Technology Officer Eric Burger. Schulzrinne is a past FCC CTO. NANC didn't propose a deadline for provider adoption due to concerns about network capabilities.