Florida's Top Robocallers, State Gets Help From Phone Companies

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Florida's attorney general says a dozen phone companies have agreed to help end the more than 360 million illegal robocalls made each month in the state. The phone companies have agreed to adopt eight principles to fight illegal robocalls and make it easier for attorneys general to investigate and prosecute bad actors nationwide, officials said Thursday.

A record 5.2 billion robocalls were placed nationwide in January 2019, while 4.7 billion such calls were made last month, according to YouMail's robocall index, and a majority of them were scam or telemarketing calls. That includes 361.8 million robocalls in Georgia in July 2019, an average of 19 for every person in the state.

"Scammers are using spoofing and cutting-edge software to make millions of illegal robocalls every day. Through these new principles, the nation’s largest voice service providers are fighting back using their own advanced technology," said Attorney General Ashley Moody. "Not only will these new efforts help consumers block unwanted calls, they will also provide attorneys general nationwide crucial information to stop scams and hold those who make illegal robocalls accountable.”

Here are the top 20 robocallers in Florida last month, showing the number, the caller ID and the type of call. They include legitimate debt collectors, credit card companies, Comcast and Macy's, along with spammers.

1. 800-955-6600
Capital One Payments/Collections
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

2. 800-266-2278
Comcast
Customer Call

3. 877-378-9207
Comcast
Service Payment Reminder

4. 877-647-8552
Wells Fargo
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

5. 888-222-4227
Santander
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

6. 855-245-7098
Transworld Systems Incorporated
Debt Collector

7. 844-894-3962
Synchrony Bank
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

8. 855-895-3382
Fingerhut
Payment Reminder

9. 614-758-2318
Discover Card
Telemarketing

10. 800-292-7508
Synchrony Bank
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

11. 801-877-1122
Telemarketing
Telemarketing

12. 866-532-0424
Citibank
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

13. 888-205-2354
Spectrum
Payment Reminder

14. 877-647-8551
Wells Fargo
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

15. 866-532-0423
Citibank
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

16. 866-408-4070
Barclays
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

17. 800-947-6229
Macy's Card Payment Reminder
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

18. 855-885-5834
Synchrony Bank
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

19. 561-235-7291
RATON FL BOCA
Unknown Robocaller

20. 972-512-3472
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder
Bank/Credit Card Payment Reminder

Moody's office said phone companies will work to prevent illegal robocalls by:

• Implementing free call-blocking technology at the network level;
• Making available to customers additional, free, easy-to-use call blocking and labeling tools;
• Implementing technology to authenticate that callers are coming from a valid source;
• Monitoring their networks for robocall traffic.

Phone companies will assist attorneys’ general anti-robocall enforcement by:

• Knowing who their customers are so those making robocalls can be identified and investigated;
• Investigating and taking action against suspicious callers – including notifying law enforcement and state attorneys general;
• Working with law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to trace the origins of illegal robocalls;
• Requiring telephone companies with which they contract to cooperate in traceback identification.

Phone carriers adopting the new principles include AT&T, Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Consolidated, Frontier, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon and Windstream.

The FCC offers a few tips for those wanting to stop unwanted and illegal robocalls. Among them, don't answer calls from unknown numbers, do not respond to questions — especially those that can be answered with "yes" — and never give out personal information such as account numbers, Social Security numbers and mother's maiden names.