Connecticut Attorney General and his New York counterpart Letitia James are part of a bipartisan coalition of 51 attorneys general that filed a lawsuit against Michael D. Lansky LLC ”“ which does business under the name Avid Telecom ”“ and company owner Michael Lansky plus its vice president Stacey S. Reeves for allegedly initiating and facilitating 7.5 billion illegal robocalls to millions of people in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal and state telemarketing and consumer laws.
Avid Telecom is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider that sells data, phone numbers, dialing software and expertise to help its customers make mass robocalls. The company provides its customers with Direct Inward Dialing (DID), which appear as a “Caller ID” number to an individual receiving a call. Avid sold DIDs in bulk and provided DIDs for telephone numbers from every area code in the nation, enabling Avid”™s customers to use caller ID numbers with the same area code as the call recipient to increase the odds of the recipient answering the phone, a practice known as “spoofing.”
Avid is accused of helping to make hundreds of millions of calls using spoofed or invalid caller ID numbers, including more than 8.4 million calls that appeared to be coming from government and law enforcement agencies, as well as private companies. Avid sent or transmitted fraudulent calls related to the Social Security Administration, Medicare scams, DirecTV, Amazon, credit card companies and auto warranty data.
“Americans are sick and tired of their phones ringing off the hook with fraudulent robocalls,” said James. “Seniors and vulnerable consumers have been scammed out of millions because of these illegal robocalls. Today we are suing Avid Telecom for facilitating these annoying and illegal calls and for hurting ordinary Americans. I am proud to stand with my colleagues to protect consumers and put an end to this national nuisance.”
“Avid Telecom and its owners transmitted billions of illegal robocalls and enabled criminal spammers to prey on American families,” said Tong. “In coordination with nearly every attorney general nationwide, we are suing today to shut down these fraud enablers and hold them accountable for the massive harm they have caused.”
