Missouri is upping its crackdown on illegal robocalls that are trying to scam residents.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says a bipartisan Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force has ordered four major voice service providers—Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless—to stop transmitting suspected scam calls. In this new effort, 51 state attorneys general formed the task force to focus on identifying and prosecuting telecom providers that carry the highest volumes of illegal robocall traffic into the U.S.
“Traceback notices indicate that each company transmitted calls tied to active illegal robocall campaigns, including impersonation schemes involving Amazon, Apple, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS,” according to a news release from Hanaway’s office. “As large national providers, these companies bear heightened responsibility to monitor and block illegal traffic.”
Hanaway, a Republican, said these companies have allowed millions of fraudulent calls to reach consumers, despite years of warnings from industry investigators.
Hanaway told Missourinet the number one consumer complaint to her office continues to be robo calls.
“They want to be put on the no call list. It continues to be a problem. We continue to very aggressively enforce the no call list, but lots of entities try to skirt it. I hate that people are still being taken advantage of in that way, and I particularly worry about elderly people who might be subjected to scams that come through those kinds of calls,” Hanaway told Missourinet.
As part of the first phase, Hanaway said 32 of 37 smaller providers are now complying with federal orders to follow robocall rules. Multiple companies have also terminated high-risk customer accounts responsible for fraudulent traffic.
Missourians who receive unwanted or fraudulent robocalls are encouraged to report them to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Unit at 800-392-8222 or online at ago.mo.gov.