The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that it had barred all U.S. phone providers from accepting calls from a small communications firm accused of delivering robocalls promoting fake student loan relief services.
According to Alex Quilici, CEO of the anti-robocall startup YouMail, which assisted the FCC with its probe, tens of millions of such calls, typically claiming to come from a generic “student loan center,” were sent to U.S. phones in recent months. The calls were typically linked to the White House student loan forgiveness program and falsely stated that consumers in the United States with student loans were required to provide personal information or pay a fee to obtain up to $10,000 in student debt relief.
“Today we’re cutting these scammers off so they can’t use efforts to provide student loan debt relief as cover for fraud,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in an emailed statement.
The FCC’s action to prohibit student loan robocalls follows a similar ruling issued in July that barred phone providers from answering calls from multiple organizations suspected of being behind a flood of offers for vehicle warranties. The calls grew so widespread that they spawned their own internet craze.
The FCC has limited investigative authority to monitor robocall origins and frequently collaborates with the Industry Traceback Group to identify the origins of significant robocall operations; the group is an anti-robocall task force organized by a trade organization supported by the country’s main phone providers. It identified a particular company, UrthAccess, as the source of a significant quantity of student loan spam.
According to Quilici, UrthAccess was by far the largest provider of student loan robocalls in recent months. According to the FCC, it was responsible for more than 40% of all student loan robocalls in October.
It was unclear whether UrthAccess actually initiated the robocalls or simply allowed scammers to use its platform. The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau said in a statement that it “is actively investigating these calls for possible further legal action,”
UrthAccess’ website describes the company as “a leading provider of state-of-the-art communications technologies,” but it provides little data about the company and does not identify any owners or employees. NBC News wrote emails and left voicemails at the website’s contact information but did not receive a response.
The Newport Office Center, a huge office space in Newport Beach, California, is listed as the company’s address on the UrthAccess website.
The manager of the Newport Office Center, Kristine Tran, said that UrthAcess had “never been a tenant at our property.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Tran said.
