At YouMail, our goal is not just to protect our users from scam or spam phone calls.
No, our goal is bigger. A lot bigger. We want to actually stop many of the scammers or spammers from making the calls in the first place.
That may sound like pie in the sky, but it’s not.
In just the first three months of 2022, we’ve been helping provide evidence that’s enabling state AGs to file civil and/or criminal charges against not only the bad guys making these phone calls, but also the carriers that are allowing them to make those calls. At best the charges are that the carriers are looking the other way, but in some cases it appears the carriers are being charged with being in cahoots.
One lawsuit is in North Carolina. The lawsuit basically claims that a Texas-based carrier, Articul8, made money by allowing high volumes of scammer calls into the US Public Switched Telephone Network, and that they didn’t stop even when they were told that these calls were illegal. In fact, the lawsuit claims that “Articul8 has routed millions of fraudulent and/or illegal telemarketing calls and robocalls into the US, including at least hundreds of thousands to the State of North Carolina and into this district, and has collected revenue as a result of the routing of those fraudulent and illegal call.”
YouMail’s role was in providing material evidence of this illegal behavior. That evidence came because many of these calls attempted to attack our users, and we collected data from the calls – when they happened, where they came from, what audio trail they left – and provided that to the Industry Traceback Group to trace back the calls to the source. In fact, according to the lawsuit, this happened 49 times. Not once. Not twice. But 49 times. You’d think that would be a hint there’s a problem, no?
These lawsuits are likely to help tremendously. They can’t simply be ignored by the carriers, since they’re not just going to magically go away. We’re happy to play a role in helping the AGs use their power to make it much harder for robocallers to find carriers that will carry obviously illegal traffic.
Some Of The Scam Calls Related To This Lawsuit
More information can be found on YouMail’s directory
Social Security Administration Imposter Scam
(213) 749-7100
“Attention. This is an emergency call from the Social Security Administration to notify you that your social security number is on the verge of being suspended as a law enforcement agencies have found some fraudulent and some suspicious activity involving your social to no more interconnect with the officer press one I repeat please press one.”
(833) 304-1447
“This is an urgent reminder, about your vehicle we’ve been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty you should have received something in the mail about your cars extended warranty at this time. We haven’t received a response back. So we are giving you a final courtesy call before we close out your file press two to be removed and be placed on our do not call list press one to speak with someone about possibly extending or reinstating your cars warranty press one to speak to a specialist or call our 800 number at 833-304-1447 U S T 456.”