Federal Communications Commission	"FCC  XX-XXX"


STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER GEOFFREY STARKS

Re:	In the Matter of Sumco Panama SA, Sumco Panama USA, Virtual Telecom kft, Virtual Telecom Inc., Davis Telecom Inc., Geist Telecom LLC, Fugle Telecom LLC, Tech Direct LLC, Mobi Telecom LLC, and Posting Express Inc., Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, File No.: EB-TCD-21-00031913

We all know and agree that robocalls are a scourge, but they’ve proven extremely difficult to combat.  Under the Chairwoman’s leadership, we’ve started coordinating across the government and the private sector, joining our expertise and resources to bring down illegal robocalling operations together.  Today’s action is an example of how successful this cooperation can be.  The Ohio Attorney General brought this matter to our attention.  The Industry Traceback Group provided information key to our identification of the entities primarily responsible for generating and transmitting the illegal calls.  Our Enforcement Bureau staff did the hard legwork to build this case.  And they did so using the authority Congress recently gave us in the TRACED Act to propose a forfeiture like this one without first issuing a citation.
Without a doubt, these are the kinds of operations we need to be going after.  As alleged, the parties in interest in this matter made more than five billion robocalls to consumers in three months.  Five billion in three months.  It’s hard to fathom, except for the fact that we’ve all been living it.  And by taking a major player like this one off the board, we’ve seen real results: after the one-two punch of Ohio filing its suit and the FCC authorizing and then directing all U.S.-based voice service providers to stop carrying traffic made by or on behalf of the parties here today, the volume of auto-warranty spam calls fell from an estimated five million per day in June 2022 to 1 million per day just a month later – an 80% reduction. Brian Fung, “A Monumental case looks to crack open the world of auto-warranty robocalls,” CNN Business (Aug. 18, 2022), https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/tech/auto-warranty-robocalls-case/index.html. 
  That’s a real counter-punch for the American people.   
Thanks again to the Chairwoman for her innovation and leadership on this important issue, and to my colleagues in the Enforcement Bureau for their good work on this item.  It has my full support. 

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