Press Release  Attorney General Campbell Joins Federal Trade Commission and Attorneys General Across the Country to Announce Enforcement Sweep of Illegal Telemarketing Calls

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, along with the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement partners nationwide, including attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, announced a new initiative focused on illegal telemarketing targeting operations responsible for billions of calls to U.S. consumers. 

The joint state and federal “Operation Stop Scam Calls” initiative builds on the efforts of Massachusetts and other state and federal partners to combat illegal telemarketing, including robocalls. This initiative targets telemarketers and the companies that hire them, as well as lead generators who deceptively collect and provide consumers’ telephone numbers to robocallers and others, falsely representing that these consumers have consented to receive calls. It also targets Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers who facilitate tens of billions of illegal robocalls every year, which often originate overseas.   

“I’m proud to join attorneys general from across the country to double down on efforts to protect consumers from illegal and deceitful scam calls,” said AG Campbell. “Working alongside the Federal Trade Commission, my office is committed to protecting Massachusetts residents, and ensuring those most vulnerable to fraud have the information and resources needed to avoid telemarketing scams.” 

“Today’s action should send a strong message that the FTC will use every tool at its disposal to target not only illegal telemarketers who harass millions of consumers every day with annoying and intrusive calls, but anyone else who enables this unlawful conduct,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC and its law enforcement partners will not rest in the fight against illegal telemarketing.” 

As part of a coalition of 51 bipartisan attorneys general, Attorney General Campbell sued Avid Telecom in May of this year. Between December 2018 and January 2023, Avid allegedly initiated and facilitated more than 7.5 billion calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal and state telemarketing and consumer laws. Approximately 104,593,113 of those calls were to numbers in Massachusetts.  

In addition to the law enforcement actions announced today, the FTC has a variety of materials aimed at helping consumers block unwanted telemarketing calls. This includes advice related to robocalls and other unwanted calls and information on how to spot and avoid phone scams at ftc.gov/calls, which is also available in Spanish at ftc.gov/llamadas. The FTC also has a new educational webpage at ftc.gov/RobocallScams that includes examples of real illegal robocalls and steps people can take to avoid robocall scams. 

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