FCC hands down $116M robocall fine, but begs for the power to hammer perps itself – By Devin Coldewey (Techcrunch) / July 14, 2022
Robocalls and other automated scams are an everyday occurrence for millions of Americans. But while stricter rules are coming and the FCC is about to hit one robocaller’s operation with a $116 million fine, the agency wants to step up its enforcement with the ability to take the scammers to court itself.
“This fine is big,” said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement accompanying the fine’s announcement. “But it also calls attention to the fact that we need new rules of the game.”
The FCC, like the FTC and other agencies, has the power to define and propose fines or other financial damages, it doesn’t actually collect them itself. Instead, it hands all the paperwork over to the Justice Department, which takes it from there. One problem: The ones getting fined sometimes get away with paying only a fraction of the amount.
As we saw a few years ago with another major robocalling penalty, this one referred by the FTC, a $5 million payment was reduced to $18,332 and the proceeds from selling the scammer’s car. In 2020, Rosenworcel lamented that the FCC had issued hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of fines and collected… $6,790. Part of that, she said, was because of a “refusal” by the DOJ to pursue the cases.
