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Illinois received over 290M illegal robocalls since 2018: lawsuit
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined officials from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to announce a crackdown on scammers.
CHICAGO - Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, along with other state and federal partners, announced a new bipartisan crackdown on illegal telemarketing this week.
Operation Stop Scam Calls is a nationwide robocall and telemarketing enforcement sweep that is targeting telemarketers, lead generators and voice-over IP service providers who make billions of illegal telemarketing calls.
"Unsolicited robocalls violate consumers’ privacy and unnecessarily cost them time and money. Companies responsible for these illegal, annoying calls must be held accountable," Raoul said. "I am proud of my office’s role in this robocall sweep with the Federal Trade Commission, law enforcement partners and my fellow attorneys general from across the country. I will continue to work to address this problem in Illinois and protect consumers’ rights by fighting against these unlawful and disruptive practices."
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As part of Operation Stop Scam Calls, Raoul and 48 other attorneys general sued Avid Telecom and its owner for allegedly breaking the law by making over 7.5 billion illegal robocalls to people on the "do not call" list, according to Raoul and the coalition.
Illinois alone received over 290 million of those calls between December 2018 and January 2023.
The FTC brought five new cases against companies and individuals involved in billions of illegal telemarketing calls across the country.
The FTC is providing resources for people to block unwanted telemarketing calls. They offer advice on dealing with robocalls, spotting phone scams and more at ftc.gov/calls.