Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission announced it is cracking down on illegal telemarketers in one of the biggest multi-agency sweeps ever.
The FTC is partnering with 101 law enforcement agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office in all 50 states. Operation ‘Stop Scam Calls’ promises to protect Americans from more than one billion illegal robocalls, many of which lead to scams. The agency says that in both 2021 and 2022, Americans received about 50 billion robocalls - many of which were scams.
An average loss of $1,400 per person was reported, stemming from these illegal robocalls.
Currently on the FTC’s radar are so-called “consent farms,” which try to harvest your personal information and sell to robocallers that may be based overseas.
“These companies put up websites that seem to offer things like job listings or gift cards. But that’s really all a ruse. What’s happening is, is they’re having all these requests for information and people are giving their phone numbers or personal information in order to get that job or gift card, which, by the way, those were not real in the first place,” said Anna Burns.
The FTC is hoping it can disrupt that cycle and stop the flow of information. Not only are they going after the companies who make the calls, but will also target providers of internet phone service enabling illegal robocalls.
If you receive one of these calls the FTC says their advice is simple, “First, hang up if you receive a robocall. The second is if you do speak with the people, not to give any of your personal information before hanging up. And the third is to report it to the FTC.”
To report robocalls to the FTC visit https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/robocalls.
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