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Stopping Illegal Robocalls Where They Start

Robocall Radar #2

Published on: March 4, 2024

Late last year, Robocall Radar #1 introduced a variety of the issues we are able to document using our RRAPTOR Robocall Surveillance platform. It’s been about 90 days since that was published. Some things have changed. It’s time for an update from the front.

DMA is MIA

One of the things we presented was a relentless calling campaign being operated by Digital Media Solutions (aka DMS Group), a big lead generator. We’re pleased to report that after many months of engagement with them and their attorney, we’re no longer seeing any traffic from the various DBA names we associate with DMS Group.

Bona fide “wins” in this space are quite rare. We’ll certainly take them where we can find them.

Relentless Calling Continues

We are not ready to rest on our laurels while the nation suffers numerous relentless calling campaigns. We continue to see relentless calling to RRAPTOR numbers on the Federal Do Not Call list.

When calling a number assigned to a wireless carrier, or listed on the Federal Do Not Call list, the caller typically needs consent from the subscriber. Often these consents are out-of-date or erroneous or fraudulent. That’s bad enough. But when they call over and over again, it is especially frustrating for the call recipient. Even worse is when similar calls come from many different Caller-IDs.

When we see such activity, and where we can identify the company signing the calls, we try to contact them. In recent weeks we have reached out to two companies: Convoso and LiveVox.

In both cases, we are able to provide detailed information about the traffic we are capturing. In some cases, a single number receives a dozen calls per day. We think that when RRAPTOR sees relentless calling to our modest pool of numbers it is indicative of a larger volume of traffic that’s most surely irksome to the public at large.

LiveVox

Here’s our outreach message to LiveVox. They have yet to respond.

Convoso

Here’s the outreach message to Convoso. They responded promptly but so far we haven’t seen or heard of any definitive action

The initial response was from their compliance team, but it wasn’t long before they referred it to their lawyer. You can read through the entire thread of the email correspondence here.

At no point were we trying to force them to subscribe to the RRAPTOR service. We provide detailed evidence of what we are experiencing, asking only that they stop making these calls.

They make claims about their commitment to using in-house solutions to monitor their network. They refer the matter to their attorney who promises only “an internal investigation to determine whether the calls were initiated using the Convoso platform.”

Given that the calls bear their STIR/SHAKEN signature we are pretty certain that the calls originate on their platform. Either that, or their cryptographic signature has been in some way compromised.

Their attorney commits they will “take steps to address them in accordance with its robocall mitigation plan.” However, on Feb 26, 2024 they updated their filing in the FCC Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD.) By law, each entry in the RMD is supposed to include a PDF document that details their formal Robocall Mitigation Plan (RMP.)

Convoso’s published RMP is a letter from their attorney insisting that their robocall mitigation plan constitutes “trade secrets” and must not be publicly disclosed. They fear that if their plan was made public it would endanger “the integrity and security of the Plan.”

So, while they say they will act in accordance with their RMP, we cannot know what that means. All the while, we continue to receive a torrent of calls that bear their cryptographic signature.

Non-Compliant Calls

As we detailed previously, we also see providers that send a relatively large number of calls that in various ways are not in compliance with the regulations to which robocallers must adhere. Again, when we have evidence of a likely problem, we reach out to the signer of the calls.

Voice SY

We recently reached out to Voice SY. We noted that they are calling numbers on the Federal Do Not Call list, and without the consent of the owner of the numbers. That’d be us.

It further appears that they are spoofing the Caller ID some cases.

Voice SY has yet to respond.

Serius Network

We’ve also reached out to Serius Network about some non-compliant calls. They too are making calls to RRAPTOR numbers on the DNC list without proper consent. The A-level attestation they ascribe to these calls gives an air of misplaced authenticity, we believe. We got a message from Serius expressing interest in accessing RRAPTOR (which we enabled for them) but haven’t been able to engage further.