FTC Receives Almost 2 Million Robocall Complaints In Nine Months

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received almost 2 million complaints from Americans regarding illegal robocalls during the first nine months of 2020.

These stats are included in the U.S. Department of Justice Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act 2020 Report to Congress.

“Illegal robocalls remain a significant consumer protection problem and one of consumers’ top complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),” the report says.

“Through the first nine months of Fiscal Year 2020, the FTC received more than 2.7 million complaints about unwanted calls, including 1.9 million complaints about robocalls.”

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According to official FTC data, the exact number of received “Do Not Call” complaints since the start of 2020 is 2,814,851, with 1,988,489 of them being related to robocalls and only 624,634 to live callers.

Over $160 million in fines

The same report says that the FTC brought roughly 150 enforcement actions against over 500 companies and 400 individuals since the National Do Not Call Registry started accepting registrations 17 years ago.

The government agency also collected more than $160 million in civil penalties and equitable monetary relief during this period as detailed in a DoJ press release published earlier today.

During last years’ Operation Call It Quits, FTC and law enforcement partners together with 25 federal, state, and local agencies coordinated 95 actions against operations that were behind over a billion illegal robocalls to consumers.

Until now, the FTC has brought over 148 enforcement actions against over 600 individuals and companies responsible for billions of illegal robocalls and various other Do Not Call violations.

“To date, 140 of these FTC enforcement actions have been resolved, and in those cases the agency has recovered over $52 million in civil penalties and $107 million in redress or disgorgement,” the agency explains.

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FCC also targets robocallers

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also slapped organizations behind robocall campaigns with hundreds of millions in fines during the last few years.

Among them, a $120 million fine was issued against a Florida-based telemarketer in May 2018 for roughly 100 million spoofed robocalls over a span of three months.

The FCC also issued an $82 million penalty in September 2018 against a North Carolina-based telemarketer for over 21 million robocalls to market health insurance.

While in these cases, the FCC was forced to issue citations for violations and alert the robocallers before finning them, starting with May 2020 the agency no longer issues warnings before issuing penalties.

The FCC also increased the maximum penalty per robocall to $10,000 through the same order and extended the timeframe within which it can penalize robocallers to four years since the violations took place.