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Arizona company accused of telemarketing calls hit with $37.5 million FCC fine

Posted at 9:54 AM, Sep 26, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-26 12:54:53-04

A Tucson-based company was hit with a $37.5 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday after allegedly making millions of telemarketing calls. 

According to the FCC, Affordable Enterprises of Arizona is accused of making more than 2,300,000 "maliciously spoofed telemarketing calls" during a 14-month span in 2016 to sell home remodeling and home improvement services. 

The FCC was made aware of the situation from a whistleblower, a former employee, which then launched the investigation. 

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The company reportedly manipulated caller ID info so the call recipient was unable to tell the call was from the business, but sometimes unassigned numbers or people unrelated to the company. 

The FCC says the "Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits anyone from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value."

Many of the call recipients had also been on the Do Not Call registry, which violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. 

This is the first major enforcement action by the FCC against a company who took consumers' phone numbers. 

You can file a complaint with the FCC here. 

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