Robocaller spoofed real numbers to avoid angry call-backs to his own phone

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Charles Taylor)

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday issued about $120 million dollars' worth of fines to two robocallers accused of spoofing real people's phone numbers.

In one of the cases, the robocaller made 21 million calls overall and told the FCC that he spoofed real people's numbers in Caller ID in order to avoid angry call-backs to his own phone. In the other case, the FCC said the robocaller made 2.3 million calls including 48,349 that spoofed the number of a single person. That unlucky person ended up getting about five angry call-backs a day for two months, the FCC said.

In the first case, the FCC fined telemarketer Philip Roesel and his companies more than $82 million. This is the same amount that the FCC proposed to fine Roesel a year ago-as is standard, the commission gave him a chance to respond before making the decision final.

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