ST PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that he has joined a multistate investigation into companies responsible for enabling foreign robocall traffic.
The bipartisan investigation is the first action of the new Anti-Robocall Task Force. The task force will look into about 20 "gateway providers," that are "allegedly responsible for enabling much of the robocall traffic in the United States." They will focus on shutting down these domestic providers to prevent them from making a profit from illegal scam traffic.
“Everybody hates robocalls — and everybody gets them, including me. Minnesotans file more complaints about robocalls with our office than about any other single problem," Attorney General Ellison said in his announcement. "I hear the same thing from other attorneys general around the country. Together, we’re taking the fight directly to anyone in the telecom industry who helps robocallers and scammers perpetrate their fraud on the public."
According to the National Consumer Law Center and Electronic Privacy Information Center, more than 33 million scam robocalls are made to Americans every day. These scam calls include Social Security Administration fraud against seniors and Amazon scams against consumers. Scammers stole about $29.8 billion dollars through scam calls in 2021 alone.
Ellison added that he encourages Minnesotans who have received scam robocalls or been victimized by them to contact or file a complaint with his office at (651) 296-3353 (Metro area), (800) 657-3787 (Greater Minnesota) or online.
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