FCC imposes $120 million fine on a robocaller from Florida

Just this week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided to slap a fine of $120 million to Adrian Abramovich. Based in Florida, Abramovich was reportedly found to have made close to a hundred million robocalls in order to persuade unsuspecting people into buying exclusive vacation deals offered by well known travel firms. The $120 million fine was first proposed back in June of last year, but it was only as recently as last Thursday that the FCC had voted to implement the fine. 

Abramovich was said to have completed about 96 million robocalls during a period spanning three months some time in 2016. Responding to the allegations thrown against him, Abramovich had claimed last month that he was not the robocall kingpin that the FCC was claiming him to be. He further repudiated any activities of fraud that were alleged against him, maintaining that he was merely practicing perfectly legal telemarketing techniques by making real vacation deal offers. The man, however, refused to answer a number of specific questions, opting instead to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

According to the FCC, the exclusive vacation deals being offered by Abramovich from well known travel and hospital brands such as Marriott and Hilton were actually bogus. The agency further named Abramovich as the person behind one of the biggest illegal robocalling campaigns ever investigated by the Commission.

Nobody in their right mind wants to get robocalls, but yet almost two and a half billion robocalls hound consumers on a monthly basis. Per the FCC’s estimation, it receives over 200,000 complaints annually over these unwanted phone calls. And back in 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had revealed that it had processed approximately 5.3 million complaints about these illegitimate telemarketing practices.

A month ago, YouMail had presented new data with regards to how rampant robocalls are, especially for those subscribed under major wireless carriers in the United States. AT&T was named as the mobile operator with the highest monthly average of incidents per customer, registering 15.1 robocalls per user during March early this year. This was followed by T-Mobile (14.8 robocalls per customer in March), Sprint (12.4 robocalls per customer), and Verizon Wireless (11.8 robocalls per customer).

Interestingly, AT&T appears to be one of the most active in combating robocalls. According to the carrier, it has prevented over 3.5 billion suspected illegal robocalls on its network to date, and its own Call Protect service has blocked over 128 million fraudulent phone calls so far.