Tag: robocalls

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a court action to stop the flood of foreign-based robocalls that a Miami company, Smartbiz Telecom, LLC, routes into the United States. The Florida Attorney General’s Office is seeking...

This week, Florida Attorney General Moody announced the national Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force is investigating two voice service providers over alleged involvement in illegal robocalls. The targets of the investigation are Michael Lansky LLC—doing business...

Last week, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially teamed up in the fight against robocalls. A new Memorandum of Understanding between state and federal robocall investigators establishes critical information...

On Monday, state Attorney General Ashley Moody released a new “Scams at a Glance" resource to help Floridians spot and avoid robotext and robocall scams. According to a recent report, spam robotexts outnumbered spam robocalls...

Last week, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to focus on collecting fines against spam callers and urged them to pursue more actions including jail time. Crist sent...

This week, state Attorney General Ashley Moody issued a Consumer Alert highlighting the increase in the number of robocalls flooding Floridians’ phones. According to the Robocall Index, so far in 2021, robocalls have increased by...

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, along with a bipartisan coalition of 52 attorneys general, is urging USTelecom and its Industry Traceback Group to further develop robocall traceback and other tools suited for law enforcement in an effort to improve enforcement against illegal robocalls. 

Back in May, on a 97-1 vote, the U.S. Senate passed Thune‘s “Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act” which, according to supporters, “gives regulators more time to find robocall scammers, increases penalties for violators, promotes call authentication and blocking adoption, and brings federal agencies and state attorneys general together to address obstacles to criminal prosecution of robocallers who intentionally flout laws.” U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cast the only vote against the proposal.

Over the summer, the U.S. House passed U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone’s, D-NJ. “Stopping Bad Robocalls” bill with major input from members of the Florida delegation. 

The bill “empowers the Department of Justice to stop robocallers from defrauding consumers through malicious phone call scams.”

The bill allows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fine “people who intentionally flout telemarketing restrictions” as much as $10,000 and expands the window from catching them from one year to three.

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., a senior Republican on the powerful U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, announced he was backing U.S. Rep. David Kustoff’s, R-Tenn., “Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act.”