Sen. Markey Grills Adrian Abramovich on Millions of Harassing Robocalls

Sir. Abramovich, you represent nearly 100 million reasons why we need strong protections against the robocall and robotex epidemic afflicting the nation. You and companies you control are alleged to have made nearly 100 million spoof

robocalls

in which you set up the calls in such a way that the caller ID suggested the calls were local calls and that is what the Consumer Protection Act phone from 1991 is designed to stop. I am the author of that law that you are accused of violating and I support the actions that the Federal Communications Commission has taken to enforce my law. The efficiency and magnitude of your robocall campaign is truly historic and you could have become the kingpin. of

robocalls

because these technologies are available and easy to use.

In his testimony he stated that many of the calls he orchestrated were only for a short period of time, but that doesn't make sense, mr. Abramovich, the interruption for consumers comes the moment the phone starts ringing, whether it's during dinner or at a time when you're out and about, that's the problem, it may only last a minute, but it's a minute which completely annoys the receiver. of the call, do you agree that mr. language in a general context I agree that I am not talking about specific details of my case, but lately I receive four or five robocalls a day from my local number and more after the FCC holders have been receiving both calls from Morris never, I don't like it when he gets those calls.

I just reject the call. Yeah, well, yeah, I usually never answer the phone, but do you understand why it irritates people. Do you understand why they don't want these unwanted calls, Mr. Obama, yes, I get it right, that's what it's about, that's what the law is intended to accomplish, protect people at home, protect people in their own privacy so that they don't receive unwanted calls and your understanding of that is obviously key. And their business model was obviously meant to circumvent that sense of protection that people want. How easy would it be, mr. Ivanovitch to come back to my office, download automated phone calling technologies and start calling thousands of consumers with fake numbers, how hard would that be, how easy or how easy, okay, I get it, senator, how easy was it mmm, can you? find that there are several options. on the Internet, for example, has open source software that is fully customizable to your needs.

All you can do is search on Google and try it, for example, Google just types the voiceover. All providers show the call ratio and it will probably appear five six seven. and most of them are based on us, how many people would you have to employ if you wanted to make, say, 10,000 robocalls a day on this on the system side? Yes, I would say, based on the general knowledge I have, I would say one per person. one and probably some technical support and how would you assume? How would consumers stop these absentee calls and enforcement action by the Federal Communications Commission?

Can you say stop no? I heard some of the hearings where they said they tried to stop the voice over IP providers. and they said it was difficult because I guess there are a lot of them, but at the end of the day, the people who make those calls need voice over IP, which is not AT&T Verizon, they are the smaller ones, they are actually looking for that type of business because it is lucrative what they can do, they can easily make a million or two million dollars a year just by charging a calling robot for those calls, people say it's a penny on the dollar, yes, but in such amounts, generally speaking, it's a lot money for the operators and they just look the other way because it's profitable for them, so there's a lot of money to be made compromising the privacy of families across the United States and you know that was the intent of the law that I wrote and that's what which is the Federal Communications Commission. is now being enforced, but this is what I would say because today I led a letter with 14 of my Senate colleagues asking the FCC's PI Chairman to adopt key protections, a comprehensive definition of autodialer that ensures that all callers must Receive permission before making robocalls or sending automated text messages. consumer and preserve the right of consumers to revoke consent if they no longer wish to receive calls or text messages.

I believe the Federal Communications Commission should take that action as soon as possible to stop the use of these technologies that harass consumers and help those with those actions. To limit the gentleman from RHD, this is the ability of companies to be able to harass people. There was a problem because a few years ago, before they returned with express consent, it is common knowledge that the cost of theft has been increasing. Years ago, it's true what I heard about robocalls, but a few years ago I remember that there were lead providers that provided you with leads and that actually the people who wanted to receive those calls were associated with business partners and somehow some people could call them and there was no need for more people to make

millions

and

millions

of us you could make thousands of course on those leads without making millions so that's what I think is increasing now because since it was passed The law of express consent no longer exists. they basically killed the leasing providers, they went out of business, there will be no more leads now, what do robocallers do?

They go and start dialing randomly, randomly, and this is the truth, most of the numbers are bad, they don't even connect your voicemails. most of them go to voicemails others are busy others just don't answer the phone so the more losses there are there is no wave like I said before there is no way legal telemarketing can offer any more any product the Traditional telemarketing has been around for 50 years. 60 or 70 years old, exactly that's the point. People don't want the phone to start ringing at seven at night and continue all night. They have the right not to be called.

They shouldn't have to hang up again and again night after night. No. It is a business model that is consistent with how American families want to live their lives at night and that is why we need these laws and that is why we need the FCC to further tighten these definitions. Thank my Lord . president