It’s About Time. Michigan Sues Massive Robo-Call Operation

How many times has this happened to you? Robo-calls.  I know it happens to me several times a week, so I guess I'm lucky it's not more often. Robo-calls selling God knows what.

Enough of us have complained over the past few years that legal officials have taken notice, and Tuesday another big lawsuit. Michigan and six other states filed a federal lawsuit against a couple of Texas companies, Rising Eagle Capital Group LLC and JSquared Telecom LLC, claiming they are some of the worst offenders. The suit claims the two companies made some 42 million robo-calls, in a five month span in 2019 alone.

Tuesday was a doubly bad day for the two accused, as the Federal Communications Commission also announced sanctions against the two companies.

According to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, in addition to making these call without the receiving callers consent, she also says,

"evidence shows the defendants illegally used robocalls, prerecorded messages, to make these solicitations without the consent of call recipients.  They engaged in caller ID spoofing and failed to provide necessary information about the caller in an effort to mislead victims. They also are accused of targeting phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry."

The spoofing is especially bad because it looks like a local call in your caller ID, and once you've answered, it's the equivalent of the caller getting a foot in the door.

But at the same time, the question begs to be asked. Why would anyone give any personal information to a stranger on the phone, whom you don't know. People do, but it's really hard to understand why.