FTC sues companies over delivery of millions of robocalls

The Department of Justice has filed a complaint on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission charging that a network of companies and individual defendants facilitated tens of millions of robocalls.

The robocalls included Voice Over Internet Protocol and ringless voicemail calls advertising debt relief services that authorities argue were misrepresented.

Stratics Networks, Netlatitude and Netlatitude President Kurt Hannigan are accused in the suit filed Friday of providing significant technological assistance to the accused telemarketers.

From 2013 to at least 2020, Stratics is accused of selling wholesale session initiation protocol termination service to VOIP providers, including Netlatitude, as well as selling access to its ringless voicemail platform. The government agencies contend that Stratics continued to do this despite notification that some of its customers were breaking the law with robocalls.

SIP termination is a process by which a phone call is sent from one provider to another. Netlatitude is accused of using the SIP termination service it bought to operate its own ringless voicemail services sold to the telemarketers, according to an FTC announcement.

The telemarketers “called consumers with robocalls delivering prerecorded marketing messages, called numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry, and failed to truthfully identify the seller of the goods and services being marketed,” the Justice Department said.

“This case targets the ecosystem of companies who perpetrate illegal telemarketing to cheat American consumers who are struggling financially. The FTC will continue to take aggressive action to protect consumers from the scourge of illegal robocalls,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Also, Atlas Marketing Partners, Atlas Investment Ventures, Tek Ventures, co-owners of those three companies Eric Petersen and Todd DiRoberto, the Kasm company and its owner, Kenan Azzeh, are each accused of misrepresenting the nature and outcomes of their debt relief services.

The Justice Department said they called consumers without first obtaining consent and failed to properly identify the seller of the debt relief services on the calls.

Mr. Petersen, Mr. DiRoberto, their companies and two other defendants, Ace Business Solutions and owner Sandra Barnes, are also accused of requesting and taking payment from debt relief customers without renegotiating or altering the customers’ loans.

Of the telemarketing defendants, two, Kasm and owner Mr. Azzeh, have agreed to a prospective settlement for $3.38 million. If the defendants avoid future violations, the amount would be reduced to $7,500, to be used for consumer redress, given their inability to pay the full $3.38 million.

For the other defendants, the government is seeking injunctions to prevent future violations of federal law, as well as civil penalties and redress to affected consumers.