AG Kaul Announces Issuance of Warning Letters to Four Additional Telecom Companies for Transmitting Robocalls
MADISON, Wis. – Attorney General Josh Kaul and a coalition of attorneys general announced Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, which will include four of the largest voice providers in the country. As part of an ongoing investigation, the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force has sent letters this week to Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless, directing the providers to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls across their networks.
“People shouldn’t have to deal with so many unnecessary and unwanted robocalls,” said AG Kaul. “There needs to be a drop in these disruptive calls.”
In August, AG Kaul sent warning letters to 37 voice providers that were suspected of allowing illegal robocalls onto the U.S. telephone network. This next phase targets four companies with large national footprints that continue to transmit hundreds of thousands — and in some cases, millions — of suspected illegal robocalls.
The chart below shows the scale of suspected illegal robocall activity linked to each company. The first column reflects how many traceback notices each company has allegedly received since 2019. A traceback notice is an official alert from industry investigators indicating that a company transmitted a call tied to a suspected illegal robocall campaign. The next two columns estimate the major scam categories – such as fake Amazon, Apple, Social Security, or IRS calls – that may have moved through each company’s network. Together, the data shows both the specific types of suspected scams these companies helped transmit and the staggering volume of robocalls flowing across their systems.
Scope of Suspected Illegal Robocall Activity
| Provider | Total Traceback Notices (since 2019) | Estimated Amazon/Apple Imposter Robocalls (3-year period) | Estimated SSA/IRS Imposter Robocalls (3–4-year period) |
| Inteliquent | 9,712 | 450 million | 1.425 billion |
| Bandwidth | 3,060 | 162.7 million | 301 million |
| Peerless | 5,662 | 210.7 million | 585.3 million |
| Lumen | 7,265 | 261.5 million | 886.2 million |
Phase 1 Has Already Delivered Results
After sending warning letters to 37 companies in August, the Task Force saw quick and measurable changes:
- 13 companies were removed from the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database, meaning no provider in the United States may accept their call traffic.
- 19 companies stopped appearing in any traceback results, indicating they ceased routing suspected illegal robocalls.
- At least four providers terminated high-risk customer accounts identified as transmitting illegal traffic.
The Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force was launched in 2022 by 51 attorneys general to investigate and take legal action against companies responsible for significant volumes of suspected illegal and fraudulent robocall traffic routed into and across the United States.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
Mentioned in This Press Release
Recent Press Releases by Wisconsin Department of Justice
