Latest news with #robocalls
CBS News
4 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Operation Robocall Roundup sends warning letters to robocall companies about illegal activity
State attorney generals from across the country, including Michigan, have issued warning notices to over three dozen companies, demanding they take action to stop illegal robocalls being routed through their networks. Operation Robocall Roundup, a campaign by the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force led by the attorney generals for Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio, was announced Thursday. "Operation Robocall Roundup will help ensure voice service providers do their part to stop illegal robocalls," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in her press release. "I look forward to continuing to work with the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force to protect people from these persistent and intrusive calls." The first step involved sending warning letters to 37 voice providers that failed to follow Federal Communications Commission rules about responding to government traceback requests. Alternatively, they have not registered in the FCC Robocall Mitigation Database or filed a plan that explains their efforts to limit illegal robocallers from using their services. A related step is sending letters to more than 100 providers that accepted call traffic from those 37 companies "so that they know they're doing business with bad actors that are not willing to follow the rules that apply to everyone equally," Nessel's press release said. Some of the activity described in the warning letters include using hundreds of unique phone numbers to route calls, circumventing caller ID technology and ignoring instructions in the National Do Not Call Registry lists. In the meantime, Nessel said, the FCC is taking a close look at several of the companies that are under investigation by the states. The Michigan attorney general's office also has a collection of resources for the public in how to recognize and report illegal robocalls.
CBS News
5 days ago
- CBS News
Pennsylvania attorney general looks to crackdown on robocalls
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has joined a national effort to crack down on robocalls. In a news release on Thursday, Sunday detailed the first action under Operation Robocall Roundup, a multistate effort by the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force to limit robocalls. Sunday joined 50 attorneys general in sending warning letters to 37 voice providers demanding they immediately stop the illegal robocalls being routed through their networks. "To stop these robocalls that are constantly on our phones, that are unbelievably annoying," Sunday said. "Not only that, could potentially be used for nefarious activities, ultimately leading to people getting scammed." While most people have experienced at least one robocall, Sunday said in most cases, the scammers set their sights on a certain group of people. "Pennsylvania has one of the highest numbers of senior citizens in the country," Sunday said. "So, we have one of the highest aging populations, and that aging population far too often, and sadly, is a target for many, many, many of these scams." Sunday's news release said the 37 providers receiving the warning letters have not followed the Federal Communications Commission rules about responding to government traceback requests, haven't registered in the FCC's Robocall Mitigation Databases, or haven't filed a plan that describes how they will reduce illegal robocalls on their telecom network. "This is a very serious action because all of us are working together to use whatever tools we have to stop these robocalls," Sunday said. Sunday said that while the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force works to put an end to the unwanted calls, there are ways to protect yourself. "We can hold these companies accountable and hopefully stop these robocalls that are driving everyone crazy, but also are being used to scam people and take their money, which is one of the number one roles of government is to keep people safe," Sunday said. Pennsylvania also can sign up to be on the state's Do Not Call list online or by calling 1-888-777-3406. By doing so, not only can you stop the calls, but it will help the FCC and the attorney general's office to determine what providers are still out there operating illegally.
Forbes
05-08-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI Is Making Cold Calling Cool Again
If you're anything like me, your phone rings all day with one persistent caller: a shady character named 'Scam Likely.' Seriously, telephone spamming has become a modern plague. Our phones incessantly buzz with endless sales calls. In fact, YouMail's Robocall Index estimated 'U.S. consumers received over 4.8 Billion robocalls' in May alone, per Cloud Communications Alliance. Is it therefore any wonder that older generations complain about how Gen Zers and Millennials won't pick up the darn phone? The public is incessantly spammed so often, nearly everyone has been conditioned to ignore calls from someone they don't know. Or from that dastardly 'Scam Likely' character. This is a big problem for companies that rely on tele-sales. But just how prevalent is cold calling in 2025 anyway? Let's check the numbers. Is Cold Calling Still Alive in 2025? Lead generation company recently performed a 'data driven' report to assess cold-calling's business utility. It produced two key takeaways: 'Over 50% of B2B leads still originate from cold calling in 2025, making it a foundational channel in outbound strategies' and '49% of B2B buyers prefer to be contacted via phone first, and 82% accept meetings from cold outreach, confirming buyer openness to calls.' is not alone in its positive assessment of telemarketing's effectiveness. A leading provider of business research and data, IBISWorld, estimates there are now nearly 50,000 telemarketing and call center businesses in the U.S. These grew at a 4.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2020 to 2025. And Cognitive Market Research projects 'the global outbound telemarketing market size will be USD 11524.8 million in 2025.' These numbers are nothing to sneeze at. Even so, it's worth asking: if so many businesses still depend on phone sales, what if there was a better way to get people to actually pick up? This is the problem a company named TitanX set out to solve using artificial intelligence. Cold Calling Reimagined with AI Recently, I had a chance to sit down with TitanX's CEO Joey Gilkey to discuss this issue. While so many companies are investing in AI agents to improve call center interactions, his organization is focused on another application: helping businesses discern who is most likely to answer a sales call. To this end, he and his team have established something called a Phone Intent Platform. 'Most spam calls happen because reps are operating in the dark,' says Gilkey. 'They're dialing through lists without knowing who's actually interested, ready to buy, or receptive to even being called in the first place. TitanX solves this by leveraging AI models trained on behavioral signals at the phone level, like phone activity patterns, consumer and business activity correlation at the person level, and technographic shifts to score prospects based on true intent.' One way to think of such precision filtering with real-time data is triage, a concept well-known to the medical world. An ER must decide who to care for in order of priority. If it treated every person who came in off the street with the same urgency, it would be a disaster. For instance, an expectant mother going into labor requires more immediate intervention than the person who comes in presenting flu-like symptoms. Certainly, both individuals require medical attention, but the former patient needs assistance right away versus the sick person who can certainly wait longer to be treated. The AI Caller Filter Difference Returning to TitanX, the platform is similarly filtering, making decisions about who to call—and more importantly—who not to call. But the AI assists sales reps in other helpful ways. The platform flags when someone is demonstrating reachability signals, so reps can reach out at the exact moment a conversation is most welcomed. Here's another way to think about it. 'Imagine your sales list is a haystack. Inside that haystack are a few needles,' says Gilkey. 'These are the people who will actually pick up the phone. Today's sales reps go straw by straw, dial by dial, hoping to find a needle. TitanX's AI sifts through the haystack first to hand you all those valuable needles.' From a technical standpoint, the platform draws from 12 proprietary signals, triangulating telecom data, consumer behavior and B2B attributes among other factors to answer three core questions. These queries can boost the sales conversion process: Armed with these insights, TitanX distills the data into a single actionable score: High Intent. This is the number sales reps need to know to better triage who would be most receptive to a sales overture. Personalization: Sales' Secret Weapon The Phone Intent Platform is but the latest installment of a broader trend toward personalization. Perhaps the most obvious example of this can be found in marketing. Before social media's arrival, businesses would apply more of a 'spray and pray approach' to raise awareness of their offerings. Think about newspaper advertising. Years ago, a studio might take out a full-page ad to promote their new movie. Although the marketing agency might have some vague idea about the newspaper's circulation and readership, they could come nowhere close to the type of precision now available to social platforms like Facebook that can zero in on highly targeted audiences. Today marketers can design highly tailored campaigns that more effectively connect with particular demographics in jaw-dropping ways. That's not all. They can use sophisticated A/B testing and even lookalike audiences to drill down further. With increasing sophistication, they can even track ad engagement through metrics such as click-through rates and impressions, ensuring a given company's marketing efforts are not based on guesswork or gut feeling, but rather quantitative factors to optimize conversion. The Future of Sales Calls Returning to the value proposition of the Phone Intent Platform, what companies like TitanX are engaged in may be thought of as not some one-off gambit to find those prospects most willing to answer a cold call. Rather, it may be viewed in a wider context, as an evolution in how tomorrow's sales organizations improve outbound communication. All those people (myself included) who choose to ignore what they perceive as phone spam are wittingly or unwittingly sending marketing companies a not-so-subtle message: your sales pitch isn't working for me. Rather than continue to inundate the public with their own version of 'spray and pray' cold calls, tomorrow's businesses would do well to up their game, to learn from the move to personalization. Why? Because it works as evidenced by how many companies now use social media marketing over bygone blanket techniques like direct mailers. Such general appeals aren't just ineffective and wasteful, they're brand-damaging. At the end of the day, AI is reimagining how sales calls function. By pinpointing prospects most likely to pick up calls from the general population, businesses can better connect with people most likely to buy—rather than shooting in the dark. Moreover, AI-advances such as the Phone Intent Program reveal what's possible when we use increasingly sophisticated technology to enhance the human experience. By scaling personalization in unprecedented ways, tele-sales companies can stop frustrating the masses and instead seek out that gleaming needle in the haystack. With any luck, the person at the other end of the line they worked so hard to reach will say yes.
CBS News
01-08-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Two men accused of intimidating Detroit voters by robocalls to be sentenced in December
Two men accused of using robocalls aimed at intimidating Detroit voters ahead of the 2020 general election have pleaded no contest to state charges in the case, the Michigan Attorney General's office reports. This is the latest step in a case that already has gone up to the Michigan Supreme Court. Investigators also said that similar phone calls had been reported in New York state, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Margaret VanHouten will sentence the two on Dec. 1. "After five years, I'm glad this case has finally reached a resolution," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. "Deceptive and racially targeted suppression schemes will not be tolerated in Michigan. My office will continue to pursue and prosecute voter intimidation, no matter how long it takes, to ensure that Michiganders can exercise their right to vote free from fear and deception." John Burkman, 59, of Arlington, Virginia, and Jacob Wohl, 27, of Fairfax, Virginia, each pleaded no contest Friday to the following charges: The phone calls in the Detroit area were made in late August 2020, aimed at nearly 12,000 residents whose phone numbers were registered to an address with a Detroit ZIP code. The Michigan Attorney General's office said that targeting resulted in predominantly Black recipients of the calls in Michigan. Nessel's office said the two attempted to discourage voter participation in the November election by promoting falsehoods over the implications of voting by mail. The 2020 election was the first presidential election during which Michigan voters could vote absentee for any reason. The changes in state law happened to coincide with, but were unrelated to, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased public interest in alternatives to same-day, polling site voting. After the State of Michigan filed charges in 2020, Burkman and Wohl attempted to quash the case. The case wound through the circuit court, Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court on various issues before landing back in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden robocall producer found not guilty of criminal charges
A political consultant was found not guilty of 11 felony charges Friday over AI-generated robocalls that mimicked President Joe Biden's voice discouraging Democrats from voting in the 2024 New Hampshire primary. The charges against Steve Kramer included voter suppression and impersonating a presidential candidate. AG vows to keep working on voter integrity after target found not guilty Attorney General John Formella said his office will keep working on efforts to protect voter integrity after a judge found Steven Kramer not guilty of state felonies for making a robocall that mimicked the voice of former President Joe Biden that urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire's 2024 primary. On Feb. 6, he identified two Texas companies and one business owner as having placed those robocalls. After the verdict in Belknap Superior Court, Attorney General John Formella noted that the Federal Communications Commission had already fined Kramer $6 million and two telecommunication companies another $1 million for violations of federal anti-robocall regulations. Kramer had been paid $150 by a political consultant working for Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips to produce the audio used to call roughly 25,000 likely voters two days before the Jan. 23, 2024 primary. Judge Elizabeth Leonard allowed Kramer's defense team to claim he didn't commit a crime because New Hampshire's primary was a 'straw poll' as it wasn't sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. 'That, ladies and gentlemen, was a brazen attack on your primary,' Kramer's lawyer Tom Reid told the jury, referring to the DNC's actions. 'And it wasn't done by Steve Kramer. 'He didn't see it as a real election, because it wasn't,' Reid said. Kramer's lawyers also argued the use of deepfake technology was protected speech rather than voter suppression. If convicted, Kramer would have faced decades in prison, with each felony carrying a prison term of up to seven years. He also faced 11 misdemeanor charges that each carried up to a year in jail. Kramer's lawyers argued he didn't impersonate a candidate because the message didn't include Biden's name and the former president wasn't on the primary ballot. Former Democratic Party chair testified at recent robocall trial Former Democratic Party Chairman Kathy Sullivan testified in the criminal trial of Steven Kramer who was found innocent of multiple charges regarding his manufacture of a robocall that mimicked the voice of former President Joe Biden to urge New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the 2024 primary. All of those calls urged anyone with questions to call Sullivan's home telephone number. Biden honored the DNC calendar and refused to file to run or campaign in New Hampshire; he won the primary easily with a record write-in vote. All the calls left the telephone number of former Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan. During the trial, Sullivan testified that her belief was that Kramer's goal was to suppress the vote. Kramer was paid $259,946 by Phillips's campaign to help the long-shot presidential candidate get on the ballot in New York and Pennsylvania. The campaign told media outlets that that work included production and distribution of a robocall that used Phillips's voice. But the Phillips campaign denied any knowledge of the Biden robocall. Kramer testified during the trial that he had no regrets even though his actions led to AI regulations in multiple states including New Hampshire. He said he came up with the stunt as a warning for how AI can be misused. He chose to use it in New Hampshire believing it would have the most impact. In a statement Friday, Formella said the state 'will continue to work diligently to address the challenges posed by emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to protect the integrity of our elections.' klandrigan@
