A man has been fined a record-breaking $120m (\u00a388m) for making more than 90 million automated marketing telephone calls in the US.<\/p>\n
Miami salesman Adrian Abramovich was accused of trying to sell holidays and timeshare properties with the unsolicited robocalls.<\/p>\n
The fine is the largest the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ever issued.<\/p>\n
Mr Abramovich said he had not intended to “defraud or cause harm”.<\/p>\n
But FCC chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement that the defence “isn’t very convincing”.<\/p>\n
“Mr Abramovich doesn’t dispute that he was responsible for placing 96,758,223 robocalls during a three-month period in 2016,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He doesn’t dispute that all these robocalls were made without the recipients’ consent.”<\/p>\n
The FCC said Mr Abramovich had spoofed his caller ID to make people believe they were receiving a call from a local number. That was in violation of US law.<\/p>\n
A pre-recorded message would offer an “exclusive” holiday or travel deal, posing as an offer from a well-known brand such as TripAdvisor or Hilton hotels.<\/p>\n
The call would then be transferred to a human operator in an overseas call centre, who would try to sell the consumer a holiday or timeshare arrangement.<\/p>\n
The FCC originally issued the fine in 2017, but Mr Abramovich had appealed against the decision and sought to have the fine reduced.<\/p>\n
But Mr Pai said it was the “largest illegal robocalling scheme” the FCC had investigated and therefore the fine was “appropriate”.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t met a single American who likes getting these kinds of robocalls,”\u00a0Mr Pai said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Our decision sends a loud and clear message: this FCC is an active cop on the beat and will throw the book at anyone who violates our spoofing and robocall rules.”<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"