2 Health Insurance Telescammers Busted

(AP) - The U.S. communications regulator on Tuesday proposed a $225 million fine, its largest ever, against two health insurance telemarketers for spamming people with 1 billion robocalls using fake phone numbers.

The Federal Communications Commission said John Spiller and Jakob Mears made the calls through two businesses. State attorneys general of Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas also sued the two men and their companies, Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom, in federal court in Texas, where both men live, for violating the federal law governing telemarketing, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The FCC said the robocalls offered plans from major insurers like Aetna and UnitedHealth with an automated message. If consumers pressed a button for more information, however, they were transferred to a call center that sold plans not connected to those companies. The FCC said the Missouri attorney general sued Rising Eagle’s largest client, Health Advisors of America, for telemarketing violations last year.

Quote:

Over more than four months in early 2019, the FCC said, these telemarketers faked the number their calls displayed in caller ID with intent to deceive consumers; purposefully called people who are on the Do Not Call list; and called people's mobile phones without getting permission first.

Consumers weren't the only ones bothered. The telemarketers faked their calls to make them appear they came from other companies, which then received angry calls and were named in lawsuits from consumers. The FCC didn't name these companies, but said one got so many calls that its phone network “became unusable.”

The fine is not a final decision. Spiller and Mears will have a chance to respond.

As robocalls became a pressing issue for consumers, both as an annoyance and as a vehicle for fraud, the FCC has pushed carriers to do more to stop them. A new law beefs up enforcement and mandates that the phone industry not charge for call-blocking tools and put in place a system designed to weed out “spoofed” calls made using fake numbers.

Reached by phone at the number listed for JSquared, Spiller declined to comment. He declined to provide contact information for Mears and said neither would speak before talking to an attorney.

Copyright 2020 Associated Press.

Did they perchance operate under the name of "2020 Healthcare Central" and "2020 Healthcare Partners?"

The posted story is all I have at the moment. You can probably do a web search and find more details.

Based on posts on this site, scammers LOVE to switch names around and sometimes even make names up on the spot near as I can tell. I would guess in a scam this big they were using many more names than what were named in the article I found.

I had seen this on my local news online this morning and it hit home for me because I currently reside in North Carolina. However, since I have a blocking service, I am assuming that many of those calls may have been blocked so I don’t know if it was healthcare calls since there was never a “true company name” on caller ID.

Now if we could just nail ALL of the scammers...During this time of economic distress, I think they should be called domestic terrorists and treated as such, because this type of abuse undermines the economy.  What do you think?

I've been swamped the past few days with robocalls - a male voice telling me that he's responding to my recent inquiry about affordable health insurance. NOT. So the calls are still going on - just hung up on one now.

I’m with you angryGramma. These people are scum and deserve to be locked up.

I totally agree, they should be treated as domestic terrorists !!!  I get at least a dozen calls a week from different scammers.... car warranty, credit card interest rate reduction, IRS saying there are warrants for my arrest, Medical devices and many more ... sooooo freaking sick of them.  And I do have a blocking service, they just change their number and call again.

If yours is a land-line, get a challenge-response type call blocker.  No rings, unless they're white-listed.  None...not even one ring.  They'll give you your land-line back.  Too bad there's not something like them for cell service...

By that scale the executives of AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and other mortgage casino players circa 2008 should be on Death Row as "economic terrorists". I think you should apply to the Justice Department or your military branch of choice if you're so hot to seek revenge. I'd suggest the police academy except that bunch is in a desperate public relations mode this year.

FCC landing page for case press releases: FCC Proposes Record $225 Million Fine for 1 Billion Spoofed Robocalls

Chairman Pai reports that one of the defendants openly admitted to deliberate targeting of phone numbers found on no-call registries, "because he “found his sales rates ... rose substantially” when he did so". I don't see any depositions made available, so I'm left to speculate on the reason. Some of us have long supported a theory that the DNCR identifies dead-end prospects and therefore is a junk call deterrent. I've not been one of them. We see them all the time around here, registrants who believe in magic and think the DNCR actively filters out "bad" callers and/or blocks them somewhere on the networks. So what's left by that logic? Only "good" callers you can trust.

One other reason is a topic of lament by Commissioners Starks and Rosenworcel, the latter being a consistent thorn in the paw of an FCC under Conservative control. The FCC is pretty good at setting headline-winning penalties and piss-poor at collecting them. They each point to reliance on the Justice Department as their debt collector as the broken link in enforcement.

The same day of the FCC news, seven state AGs launched a combined lawsuit from Houston against the same defendants.

AG Paxton Joins FCC and Six States in Effort to Halt Unlaw­ful Robocalls - press release
Their complaint with spaces stupidly embedded in the file name: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/de ... nt%206.9.20.pdf

All the states rack up violations of TCPA and their own variants of no-call registries, plus anti-spoofing and deceptive practice laws, not to mention interstate commerce issues like failing to register with a state. Mentioned only in the states' complaint, the scofflaws were also behind a massive side hustle of vehicle service contracts.

For you pattern matchers out there, CNAM fields cited for the insurance pushers were "Health Hotline” and “We Care Health". I know there were several others. Two canned call transcripts are helpfully provided, and they are very familiar to those of us who took notes after each of their umpteen dozens of calls in the past couple years. The insurance pitch features the infamous "healthy and blessed" sendoff, while the "warranty specialist" teaser is the slightly hoarse lady who consistently drawls certain words like "uh-gayy-ahn".

    "Hi, this is Ann. I am calling to let you know we have been granted a limited health enrollment period for a few weeks, so you and your family can get a great insurance plan at the price you can afford. And we make it hassle free to sign up. We have pre-approvals ready in your area including Cigna, Blue Cross, Aetna, United and many more. Press 1 to get a hassle-free assessment or press 2 to be placed on our do not call list. Thanks for your time and be healthy and blessed."

    "We've been trying to reach you concerning your car's extended warranty. You should have received something in the mail about your cars extended warranty since we have not gotten a response. We are giving you a final courtesy call before we close out your file. Press two to be removed and put on our do not call list press one to speak with someone about possibly extending or reinstating your car's warranty. Again, press one to speak with a warranty specialist."

It's said that the "healthy and blessed" calls directed insurance buyers never once to the promised big name brands but some obscure podunk outfit, which offered policies with the approximate value of the cheapo toilet paper now appearing on mostly empty store shelves this year. As Pai put it, "unsuspecting recipients of these robocalls were transferred to Rising Eagle’s clients, which attempted to sell them short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans offered by lesser known entities". I think it's a given that the "warranty" value was the same. I'm only upset that I'd never connected the two schemes, but their business model parallel is now obvious.