Despite stepped-up enforcement action by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), violators of the Commission’s rules against robocalls seem to be getting off too easily.
That’s a summary of the findings published in late March in the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal’s report, the FCC has issued Forfeiture Orders authorizing civil penalties totaling $1.5 billion for robocalls or violations of National Do Not Call Registry-related regulations since 2004. However, only about $121 million (about 8% of the amount levied) has actually been collected in legal actions initiated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is authorized to collect such fines.
According to the Journal’s report, the FCC and the FTC claim that the challenges to collecting a greater percentage of the amount levied under Forfeiture Orders is due in part to the number of small, illegal operations that can quickly close or change identity once threatened by an enforcement action. Other challenges include operators based outside of the U.S., where the seizure of assets is problematic.
