The state of Florida is taking part in a wide-ranging lawsuit targeting a Voice Over Internet Protocol service provider for facilitating billions of illegal robocalls, with nearly 620 million of those calls made to Sunshine State residents.
A news release from the office of Attorney General Ashley Moody on Wednesday said the legal action involves Florida and 48 other attorneys general in the form of a complaint against Michael D. Lansky, LLC, d/b/a Avid Telecom, its owner Michael Lansky, and its vice president Stacey S. Reeves, for allegedly initiating and facilitating billions of illegal robocalls to millions of people.
The legal action seeks temporary and permanent injunctions against continued calls and asks for damages, restitution or other compensation on behalf of residents that could rise into the billions if successful in litigation.
The complaint alleges the company violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other federal and state telemarketing and consumer protection laws.
Avid Telecom sent or transmitted more than 7.5 billion calls to telephone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry—approximately 619 million of those calls were placed to Floridians on the registry.
“We’re taking legal action against Avid Telecom for blatantly sending billions of illegal robocalls within a span of four years, including scam calls about Social Security, Medicare, auto warranty and more," the release quoted Moody. "The service provider was put on notice more than 300 times about their illicit activity and the company continued to flagrantly violate consumer protection and telemarketing laws—this is unacceptable, and we are seeking injunctive relief to better protect consumers.”
Avid Telecom is a VoIP service provider that sells data, phone numbers, dialing software, and/or expertise to help its customers make mass robocalls. It also serves as an intermediate provider and allegedly facilitated illegal robocalls by routing them across the country.
Between December 2018 and January 2023, Avid sent or attempted to transmit more than 24.5 billion calls. More than 90% of those calls lasted less than 15 seconds, which indicates they were very likely unwanted robocalls.
Further, Avid helped make hundreds of millions of calls using spoofed or invalid caller ID numbers, including more than 8.4 million calls that appeared to be coming from government and law enforcement agencies, as well as private companies.
Avid Telecom allegedly sent or transmitted scam calls impersonating the Social Security Administration, as well as perpetrating Medicare scams, auto warranty scams, Amazon scams, DirecTV scams, credit card interest rate reduction scams and employment scams.
An example of one of those calls, citing a Social Security fraud, is as follows : "SSA department is filing a lawsuit against you. An arrest warrant has been released on your name.”
The suit said that even if the defendants had not been specifically informed at least 329 times that Avid Telecom was carrying illegal robocall traffic, they knew or should have known that Avid Telecom was assisting and facilitating telemarketers or sellers transmitting illegal robocalls based on its call detail records, which are business records that are automatically generated by every telecom provider when a call is originated or transmitted and are kept in order to bill for the service of originating or transmitting each call across the provider’s network.
The suit also said that Avid Telecom and Lansky have been on notice about this illegal call traffic for many years.
The legal action arises from the nationwide Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force of 51 bipartisan attorneys general. The task force is investigating and taking legal action against those responsible for routing significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic into and across the United States. The Federal Trade Commission and the SSA's Office of the Inspector General provided investigative assistance in this matter.
The Florida attorney general's office joined in the complaint with the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
