From staff reports OKLAHOMA CITY – Attorneys General throughout the nation have expanded their campaign to rein in illegal robocalls by targeting four of the largest voice providers in the country.
In Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force has directed Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls across their networks.
“These phone companies have been warned to follow the rules and stop allowing fraudsters to harass and scam hardworking Oklahomans,” the state Attorney General’s office wrote in a press release. “The ridiculous flood of illegal robocalls in Oklahoma and around the country must come to an end.”
Oklahoma’s A.G.’s office sent warning letters in August to 37 smaller voice providers that were allowing suspected illegal robocalls onto the U.S. telephone network.
This new 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, prosecutors contend.
As larger providers, these companies have a heightened responsibility to decline call traffic from known and repeat bad actors, attorneys general assert. 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.”
After sending warning letters in August, the Task Force reported rapid and measurable changes:
• 13 companies were removed from the Federal Communications Commission’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.
In 2022, attorneys general across the U.S. joined forces to create the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force. 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.