Robocallers who called the FCC pretending to be from the FCC land telco in trouble

In its first enforcement action of the Trump presidency, the FCC has voted to propose fining Telnyx $4,492,500 – after scammers pretending to be the watchdog’s staff started calling actual FCC staffers via the VoIP telco.

The FCC was alerted to the issue on February 6 last year when several staff, and some of their family members, received robocalls to their work or personal numbers with a message claiming to be from an imaginary FCC Fraud Prevention Team. The calls went on for a day before being shut down.

One call recipient who answered ended up being badgered by one scammer who “demand[ed] that [they] pay the FCC $1,000 in Google gift cards to avoid jail time for [their] crimes against the state,” the regulator said. Needless to say, the FCC – or indeed any US government agency as far as we can tell – does not currently accept gift cards for payments or fines.

“Cracking down on illegal robocalls will be a top priority at the FCC,” said [PDF] Trump-appointed FCC boss Brendan Carr.

“That is why I am pleased that our first Commission-level action is a bipartisan vote in favor of this nearly $4.5 million proposed fine. This fine flows from an apparently illegal robocalling scheme and continues the FCC’s longstanding work to stop bad actors.”

The decision to propose the fine was a bipartisan 3-1 split, with one Republican commissioner Nathan Simington refusing to support the proposal. While he said the calls were “particularly egregious and certainly worth enforcement action,” he cited last year’s Supreme Court ruling on SEC v Jarkesy, which stated that in some cases a jury trial was required before a fine could be levied by a government agency.

In any case, Telnyx has appealed the proposed fine, or Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture to use the formal name. It says it acted responsibly and managed to stop the robocalls as soon as it was alerted.

“The FCC’s own regulations have long stated that perfection in mitigating illegal traffic is not required. Since bad actors continuously find ways to avoid detection, the FCC has historically expected providers to take reasonable steps to detect and block them,” the telco said in a statement.

“Yet the FCC now seeks to impose substantial monetary penalties on Telnyx for limited unlawful calling activity that Telnyx not only did not originate but swiftly blocked within a matter of hours. It is in no one’s interest, certainly not ours, to allow unlawful calling on our platform. Notably, there has been no allegation of subsequent recurring activity.”

The watchdog and the provider will now sit down to negotiate a potential settlement. With the FCC’s vote, the maximum payout by the telco has now been set, and the two sides will have to work out a compromise. Typically the agency will reach a no-fault settlement rather than taking the matter to court; however, it seems confident of its case.

“Providers are required to know their customers and secure their networks to deter fraudulent and malicious calls,” said Patrick Webre, acting chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. ®

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