Attorneys General from 49 states, including Oklahoma’s Gentner Drummond, filed a lawsuit May 23 against Avid Telecom, its owner and vice president for allegedly facilitating billions of illegal robocalls and violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal and state telemarketing and consumer laws.
Avid Telecom, owned by Michael Lansky, sent or transmitted more than 7.5 billion calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry between December 2018 and January 2023. Approximately 101 million of those calls were to numbers in Oklahoma, Drummond said.
“Scam robocalls are a nuisance and oftentimes cause financial harm to Oklahomans,” he said. “Those who are responsible for violating the law and initiating or facilitating these fraudulent calls must be held accountable.”
Avid Telecom is a Voice over Internet Protocol service provider that sells data, phone numbers, dialing software, and/or expertise to help its customers make mass robocalls. It also serves as an intermediate provider and allegedly facilitated or helped route illegal robocalls across the country.
Between December 2018 and January 2023, Avid sent or attempted to transmit more than 24.5 billion calls. More than 90% of those calls lasted less than 15 seconds, which indicates they were likely robocalls, Drummond said.
Further, Avid helped make hundreds of millions of calls using spoofed or invalid caller ID numbers, including more than 8.4 million calls that appeared to be coming from government and law enforcement agencies, as well as private companies, the lawsuit charges.
Avid Telecom allegedly sent or transmitted scam calls about Social Security, Medicare, auto warranties, Amazon, DirecTV, credit card interest rates and employment.
The USTelecom-led Industry Traceback Group, which notifies providers about known and suspected illegal robocalls sent across their networks, sent at least 329 notifications to Avid Telecom that it was transmitting these calls. Nevertheless, Avid Telecom “continued to do so,” the attorneys general asserted.
The lawsuit was filed in Arizona’s federal district court, citing the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and certain state laws designed to protect consumers against unethical trade practices, including unfair, deceptive, abusive and illegal telemarketing practices.
The legal action arises from the nationwide Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force of 51 bipartisan attorneys general. The task force is investigating and taking legal action against those responsible for routing significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic into and across the country. The Federal Trade Commission and the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General provided investigative assistance in the matter.
Drummond and attorneys general of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, and 42 other states joined in the complaint.