Consumer Alert
Tired of robocalls? So are we. Today the FTC and state and federal partners announced Operation Call it Quits, an effort to go after robocallers. As part of the announcement, the FTC has new videos, infographics, and articles you can watch, read, and share at ftc.gov/calls.
You can read more in our press release, but the FTC actions announced include:
- A Florida-based operation that the FTC alleges used illegal robocalls in a scheme to get people to pay to get their credit card interest rates lowered — which didn’t happen.
- A money-making scheme that the FTC alleges used robocalls and online ads to get people to pay thousands of dollars for “program memberships” to get big earnings. But few people made any money buying into the program, and many lost their entire investment. Instead, they were told to make more robocalls to pitch program memberships and digital products to other people.
- A serial dialer who settled charges that he operated a dialing platform that blasted out illegal calls for telemarking operations, including calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, robocalls, and calls with faked caller ID information.
- A telemarketer for the solar industry that the FTC alleges called people illegally, including millions of calls to people on the National Do Not Call Registry. The defendants called people to see if they were interested in home solar energy systems, and then transferred interested people to companies selling the solar products. The owners of the operation have agreed to a ban on placing robocalls and calling numbers on the Registry.
So what can you do about robocalls? If you get one:
Hang up.
- Don’t trust caller ID — it can be faked.
- Ask your carrier about call blocking.
- Report robocalls to the FTC at donotcall.gov.
Learn more at ftc.gov/calls.
Search Terms
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.