Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced Tuesday the launch of Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, a multistate initiative targeting major telecommunications providers accused of transmitting billions of suspected illegal robocalls across the country.
The action is part of the ongoing work of the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force, a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general that has now directed four major companies – Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless – to immediately halt the flow of likely fraudulent robocalls through their networks.
“Robocalls are not only annoying and disruptive to our everyday lives, but they are often used to perpetrate scams,” Fitch said. “I am proud to join my colleagues as we protect not only Mississippians, but all Americans from these unsolicited calls and hold the companies that facilitate them accountable.”
According to the task force, the four named providers continued routing large volumes of suspected scam calls, despite receiving traceback notices and industry warnings for years. Investigators found that more than 1 billion imposter Amazon and Apple robocalls and over 3 billion fraudulent IRS and Social Security calls were transmitted through their systems over a three to four-year period.
Phase 2 follows significant progress made earlier this year. In August, as part of Phase 1 of Operation Robocall Roundup, Fitch and other attorneys general issued warning letters to 37 smaller voice providers allowing suspected illegal robocall traffic. The Federal Communications Commission later removed 13 of those companies from its Robocall Mitigation Database, effectively blocking all U.S. providers from accepting their call traffic. Four additional companies terminated high-risk accounts, and 19 no longer appear in traceback results.
On average, Americans receive more than 13 robocalls a day, many of them linked to scams involving identity theft, financial fraud, and impersonation schemes. Fitch joined 50 attorneys general in 2022 to launch the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force to identify, investigate, and seek enforcement against entities responsible for large-scale robocall operations.
The Attorney General’s office encouraged Mississippians to remain cautious and report suspected scam calls as the crackdown continues.
