WILMINGTON — A Port City man is facing a multi-million dollar from the Federal Communication Commission after making more than 21 million robocalls.
The FCC announced Wednesday that it plans to fine Philip Roesel of Wilmington $82,106,000 for violation of the Truth in Caller ID Act.
The law forbids “spoofing,” which is any attempt to disguise a caller’s “identity with the intent to harm, defraud consumers, or wrongfully obtain anything of value,” according to FCC.
The FCC alleges Roesel made these calls to sell health insurance to “vulnerable consumers, including the elderly, the infirm, and low-income families.”
The FCC found that Roesel’s company, Best Insurance Contracts, made millions of “spoofed robocalls” under the name Wilmington Insurance Quotes. According to the FCC, Roesel was able to transmit inaccurate caller ID information. The FCC alleges Roesel made these calls to sell health insurance to “vulnerable consumers, including the elderly, the infirm, and low-income families.”
The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau responded to a December 2016 complaint from a medical paging provider called Spōk after its phone network was disrupted by Roesel’s robocalls. The FCC tracked Roesel’s call records from October 2016 through January of this year and verified 82,106 calls with falsified caller ID information.
The proposed fine is part of the FCC’s increased focus on malicious “spoofing” and other robocall scams. According to the FCC, efforts are underway to set up new systems to prevent fraudulent caller ID.
The agency is also reviewing plans to “help consumers prevent spoofing scams like the famous IRS debt scam through a ‘Do-Not-Originate’ list which would help carriers block spoofed calls purporting to be from numbers that do not make calls, like specific in-bound-only phone lines used by entities like the IRS or numbers using non-existent area codes.”
There is a Wilmington Insurance Quotes listed in Myrtle Grove; its webpage links to a default Google search page. A number under that name reached by phone, representative Dinna Proffitt Insurance Quotes was a State Farm agency. She said Roesel did not work at the agency.
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