FCC ISSUES THREE MORE CEASE AND DESIST LETTERS

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The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enforcement Bureau (Bureau) has issued three more new cease and desist letters in connection apparent transmission of illegal robocalls (https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-airespring; https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-hello-hello-miami; https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-robocall-cease-and-desist-letter-thinq).

The Bureau issued the letters to Airesping, Hello Hello Miami and thinQ Technologies on March 22, 2022. According to the FCC’s News Release, “FCC investigations found that thinQ, Airespring, and Hello Hello Miami were apparently facilitating illegal robocall traffic on their networks. These investigations relied in part on information collected by the Traceback Consortium which, having been made aware of suspicious activity, traced the illegal robocall traffic to these providers. In addition, in the case of thinQ, the North Carolina Department of Justice identified that company as a source of illegal robocall traffic.”( https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-warns-robocall-facilitators-remove-illegal-traffic).

The Bureau warned each of the voice service providers that “they have 48 hours to stop facilitating this traffic or face all their traffic being blocked by other providers.”

More than a dozen voice service providers have now received cease-and-desist letters (https://www.fcc.gov/robocall-facilitators-must-cease-and-desist).

The Bureau News Release noted that “[t]o date, all recipients have quickly responded and committed to take actions to stop the flow of robocalls on their networks. That said, the FCC and its partners remain vigilant in monitoring these – and all – providers’ efforts to ensure unyielding compliance with consumer protection requirements going forward.”

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel observed: “There are far too many phone companies that count illegal robocallers among their clients, and that’s bad business…. It is illegal to allow these junk calls to flood consumers’ phones, and there are consequences for phone companies that do not take immediate action to stop participating in these schemes.”

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Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

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  1. AireSpring’s investigation determined that all calls referenced in the FCC notification originated from upstream intermediate providers and did not originate from direct customers of AireSpring. Furthermore, all of these companies were previously blocked and disconnected from the AireSpring network prior to receiving this FCC notification. None of these companies were active customers as of the date of the notice.

    As a member of the Carrier Community, AireSpring takes its responsibilities very seriously and we are vigilant in monitoring our network for robocall activity. While no solution is foolproof, we work to block such calls in real time before they ever complete. We have implemented multiple best of breed technologies such as the YouMail zero-hour robocall mitigation platform, AI-powered analytics, call blocking, and STIR/SHAKEN to suppress and combat such robocalls from taking place, which represent less than 0.000001% of calls on our network.

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