NORFOLK, Va. — Warning letters are being sent all across the country to phone companies who are allowing "obnoxious, unlawful robocalling" to run rampant across their networks.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares signed four letters to: KWK Communications, Inc., Inbound Communications, AKA Management, Inc., and CallVox LLC.
The letters allege that more than 350 "traceback notices" have been sent between the four companies combined.
"A traceback notice is typically after an attack has typically been executed and some type of financial gain has taken place," said Greg Tomchick, CEO of Valor Cybersecurity. "They probably get hundreds of thousands of blocked numbers, but traceback would actually be somebody getting taken advantage of by that robocaller."
Tomchick said oftentimes these smaller companies can become unwitting, or even knowing, accomplices to robocallers because they do not vet their networks consistently enough to block known scammers.
In some cases, these phone companies have allegedly routed about 12.1 million Amazon and Apple imposter robocalls to consumers in a single month.
"Criminals know they can hack these organizations because they are smaller, they don't have as much security or infrastructure, and then they usually use them as a pawn in the game that they are playing," said Tomchick.
Attorney General Miyares warned that if these phone companies allow robocallers to continue to weaponize their networks, they could face both state and federal legal action.
Tomchick said for people who are receiving an avalanche of robocalls per day, it's not enough to simply ignore them.
"We typically recommend not having a voice-mail set up that people beyond your immediate contacts can hear," said Tomchick. "If it goes all the way to voicemail, they hear your voice - they know somebody is there on the other line that will pick up eventually and they will keep calling."
Tomchick said as frustrating as the calls are, the best thing you can do is block the phone number and inform your phone provider about the repeated spam.
The worst thing you can do, Tomchick said, is to give in to robocallers' demands and give them your money or voice.