Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Robocall company outed, warned

Posted in:

Illinois

Voters in New Hampshire were treated in January to a call purporting to be from President Biden telling them not to vote in the primary. After a brief but intense investigation, the perpetrator has been revealed to be Life Corporation, a Texas-based company that has been caught slinging disinformation before. […]

Investigators traced the calls to a shady telecoms provider called Lingo, which has also gone by Americatel, BullsEyeComm, Clear Choice Communications, Excel Telecommunications, Impact Telecom, Matrix Business Technologies, Startec Global Communications, Trinsic Communications and VarTec Telecom. The FCC notes that the company (whatever its name really is) has been doing illegal call operations for years.

Lingo, however, was only doing the transmission of the calls on behalf of Life Corporation, a Texas company owned by one Walter Monk and also no stranger to illegal activity. The FCC notes that it cited Life and Monk in 2003 “for delivering apparently illegal prerecorded and unsolicited advertisements to residential lines.”

* AG Raoul…

Attorney General Kwame Raoul today sent a warning letter to a company that allegedly sent New Hampshire residents scam election robocalls during the New Hampshire primary election. The calls allegedly used artificial intelligence (AI) to impersonate the president and discourage voters from participating in the primary. Early voting in Illinois’ 2024 general primary election begins Feb. 8.

“As we approach Illinois’ general primary election next month, I encourage voters to be wary of artificial intelligence calls relating to elections. While the voice on the other end of the call may seem familiar and convincing, I urge voters to remain cautious. Be sure to independently confirm any information you receive unsolicited regarding voting,” Raoul said. “The right to participate in our nation’s democracy is one of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans. I will continue to work with fellow attorneys general to ensure that right is protected from misleading robocalls.”

In their warning letter, Raoul and a bipartisan 50 coalition of attorneys general on the nationwide Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force warn Life Corporation (Life Corp) and its owner and executives to cease any unlawful call traffic immediately. Otherwise, they may be in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Truth in Caller ID Act and other state consumer protection laws.

A Task Force’s investigation indicates that Life Corp allegedly spoofed calls to appear as if they were coming from legitimate New Hampshire political party officials. Callers then proceeded to provide incorrect information about elections and voting to the call recipients.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau also issued a cease-and-desist letter to Lingo Telecom, which was identified to have originated a portion of these calls for Life Corp, demanding that it immediately stop supporting illegal robocall traffic on its networks.

Attorney General Raoul, as part of the bipartisan Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force, investigates and takes legal action against those responsible for routing significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic into and across the United States.

Raoul encourages voters who believe they have been a victim of AI robocalls related to an election to file a complaint with his office by visiting the Attorney General’s website or by calling Raoul’s Consumer Fraud Hotlines:

1-800-386-5438 (Chicago)
1-866-310-8398 (Español)
1-800-243-0618 (Springfield)
1-800-243-0607 (Carbondale)

The letter is here.

Thoughts?

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:19 am

Comments

If these companies and this person have been doing these illegal calls for years, isn’t about time someone went to prison and and had huge fines levied?

Comment by DuPage Saint Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:24 am
All 50 States in agreement with Raul and yes get these shady businesses shut down. Hate Robo Calls.

Comment by clec dcn Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:41 am
“The FCC notes that the company (whatever its name really is) has been doing illegal call operations for years.”

Operation “Whack-A-Troll” might be a good name for this.

Comment by Anon221 Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:42 am
It’s time to also go after the clients of this (these) companies. Follow the money Sorce, start living big fines.

Comment by froganon Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:56 am
We have infinite money for uniformed police to sit in SUVs on Michigan Ave, or for NYPD to hang out on subway stations, or to fly LAPD helicopters to look at graffiti on empty apartment buildings.

But people can repeatedly break the laws in ways that are significantly impacting functional democracy and the people in charge just go “welp, nothing can be done about it”

Comment by Homebody Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:59 am
Given the (usually it enforced) f emines for violating the Do Not Call list, let alone the other laws, these companies should have been put out of business decades ago. But, as noted, they have umpteen shell corporate names, so it’s hard to prosecute and bankrupt them.

Heck, Id be happy if they could just get them to conform to the specified hours. I’ve got one that calls at 7 am in the morning …

Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 11:59 am
=== isn’t about time someone went to prison and and had huge fines levied? ===

That would be a great start. You’d think the “law and order” crowd would be all over this. But apparently it’s fine to run a business called The Crime Company: Where We Love Crime as long as it doesn’t break any Walgreens windows.

Comment by vern Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 12:01 pm
Another idea might be to cancel landlines. We did that and robocalls to cell phone that once came to lines associated with the land line address seemed to disappears. Could be a coincidence, but it happened. this is a tangent to the theory that real way to bring down U.S. gas prices is to stop filling the tank. Leaving the gas in the gas stations there is nowhere for the tankers to dump the product. Once supply chain fills producers must drop prices.

Comment by Annon'in Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 12:29 pm
Monk needs a long prison sentence.

Comment by Big Dipper Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 12:40 pm
== Another idea might be to cancel landlines. We did that and robocalls to cell phone that once came to lines associated with the land line address seemed to disappears. Could be a coincidence, but it happened. ==

If only it were that easy. Data brokers build profiles based on information collected from breaches, leaks, public records, and sold information all the time, put it all together and then sell them to whoever wants it.

I own the internet domain for my actual name, which lets me use [businessname]@mylegalrealnameimnotpostinghere.com for everything I sign up for, partially for sorting and partially to see who is careless with the information I give them. I also kept my old landline number and ported it to Google Voice to use it as a throwaway for places that want my number instead of giving my cell number. The email thing was especially handy when Super PACs started emailing me at “acehardware@mylegalrealnameimnotpostinghere.com” during the 2020 and 2022 elections.

Even then, all it took was an older gentleman in Mattoon who transposed some numbers in his cell number with mine when signing up for something in that area, it got hoovered up by a data broker, and now I get robocalls and spam texts. It used to be a few times a week until I did some opt-out work on some of the broker sites, now it’s down to a couple times a month.

Comment by Leap Day William Wednesday, Feb 7, 24 @ 2:24 pm