HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut’s Attorney General called those annoying telemarketing calls people try to avoid, robocalls.
Thursday he announced a major crackdown on unwanted telemarketing calls. A joint federal and multistate investigation led to a settlement with several groups that claimed to be fundraising and making millions of dollars.
“They targeted Connecticut,” said Attorney General William Tong. “34 million calls in Connecticut alone. This is a massive fraud across our country, one of the largest robocall operations ever. We can say that we stopped this one and we’re hot on the trail of many others.”
The Attorney General called it a massive charity fraud robocall operation. He said the Associate Community Services company quote "deceptively collected" more than 110 million dollars by making 1.3 billion phone calls.
Tong said ACS made the calls between Jan. 2016 and Aug. 2019 allegedly claiming to support veterans, children, firefighters and other causes, but keeping as much as 90 cents for every dollar collected.
The Attorney General assisted the Federal Trade Commission and multiple law enforcement agencies in a joint state and federal investigation to stop the telefunding operation. He said the defendants have agreed to settle charges for millions.
He said robocalls are used every day to scam people into giving money or personal information about themselves.
“Unwanted calls come in a number of different ways and so we’re focused on all of them, particularly the ones that result in an actual fraud and scamming activity,” Tong said.
He said it often starts with a robocall requesting someone to press a number. Sometimes the call is followed up with another call.
“I feel like it’s very annoying and very frustrating,” said Glastonbury resident Paula Alves. “And then you press 9 to remove you from their caller list and they still keep calling.”
Alves said she receives robocalls, which have picked up recently.
“About your car warranty, she said. “Those I get quite often and then I get others. I don’t event pick up the phone to be honest with you.”
“They’re advertisers and I don’t care for advertising to interrupt my day,” said West Hartford Resident Stephen Utz.
Better Business Bureau (BBB) spokesperson Luke Frey said robocalls are popular complaints and millions of people get them every minute.
“I’ve been to community events and even checking in on our BBB scam tracker over the past years and people are annoyed at the shared amount of calls they get,” Frey said.
He said if someone wants to donate to a good cause the person should do research and make the call directly.
“A lot of these are not legitimate companies or nonprofits, so you really have to be careful what info you hand over whenever you get any of these robocalls,” Frey said.
Tong said people should sign up for the Do Not Call Registry. He added that if someone has been a victim of fraud the person can reach out to the Attorney General’s Office or their local police department.
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