Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, directing four major voice providers to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls as part of a multistate investigation.
Officials say the targeted companies continue to route significant volumes of fraudulent calls despite prior warnings, while earlier enforcement actions against smaller providers have already reduced illegal robocall traffic.
Per the news release distributed on Wednesday, December 3: “Today, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown announced Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, expanding the crackdown on illegal robocalls to include four of the largest voice providers in the country. As part of an ongoing investigation, the bipartisan Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force has directed Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls across their networks.
“These four major providers transmit billions of fraudulent robocalls that interrupt Marylanders’ dinners, work, and family time,” said Attorney General Brown. “Our Task Force’s message is simple: do more to stop these invasive calls now or face the consequences.”
In August, the Task Force sent warning letters to 37 smaller voice providers that were allowing suspected illegal robocalls onto the U.S. telephone network. This next phase targets companies with far larger footprints in the U.S. telecom ecosystem. The four companies are continuing to transmit hundreds of thousands – and in some cases, millions – of suspected illegal robocalls.
A traceback notice is an official alert from industry investigators indicating that a company transmitted a call tied to a suspected illegal robocall campaign. The number of traceback notices, as well as specific types of scams these companies helped transmit and estimated volume of robocalls flowing across their systems is noted in the letters to each of these companies available here.
As larger providers, these companies have a heightened responsibility to decline call traffic from known and repeat bad actors. Despite extensive industry traceback notices and years of documented warnings, these four providers continue to route suspected illegal robocalls onto the network and into American homes.
Phase 1 Has Already Delivered Results
After sending warning letters to 37 companies, the Task Force saw rapid, measurable changes:
· 13 companies were removed from the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database, meaning no provider in the United States may accept their call traffic.
· 19 companies stopped appearing in any traceback results, indicating they ceased routing suspected illegal robocalls.
· At least four providers terminated high-risk customer accounts identified as transmitting illegal traffic.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office joined the Robocall Task Force in 2022. The Task Force investigates and takes legal action against companies responsible for significant volumes of illegal and fraudulent robocall traffic routed into and across the United States.”
