by Sarah Roderick-Fitch
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined a nationwide lawsuit against Avid Telecom for “violating” the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for allegedly “facilitating billions of illegal robocalls.”
Miyares is joining a bipartisan coalition of 48 attorneys general from across the country in filing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
The legal complaint was filed against Michael D. Lansky, LLC, under the business name Avid Telecom, a voice over internet protocol company that sells data, phone numbers and dialing software to assist clients in producing mass robocalls. Also named are the company’s owner Michael Lansky and Vice President Stacey Reeves.
The suit accuses the business trio of violating multiple state and federal consumer laws, including the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
The lawsuit says between December 2018 and January 2023, Avid transmitted over 24.5 billion robocalls, with 90 percent of the calls lasting less than 15 seconds – indicating likely robocalls. Miyares’ office alleges the company serves as an intermediate provider for VoIP robocalls and “facilitated or helped route illegal robocalls across the country.”
The company is accused of assisting “hundreds of millions of calls” utilizing spoofed or invalid caller ID numbers. The complaint alleges the company spoofed over 8.4 million calls, which appeared to be from private companies, government and law enforcement agencies – including the Virginia State Police.
In addition, the complaint says over 7.5 billion of the calls transmitted were made to numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry.
According to the suit, the company allegedly transmitted scam calls regarding the Social Security Administration, Medicare, auto warranties, and employment scams, among several others.
A USTelecom-led Industry Traceback group, which contacts companies regarding suspected illegal robocalls sent through their networks, alerted Avid Telecom at least 329 times that the company was transmitting the calls. The group says Avid Telecom continued the calls despite the notifications.
“Avid Telecom refuses to stop their robocalls, despite receiving over three hundred warnings. They have routed nearly 235,000,000 calls to numbers with Virginia area codes,” Miyares said.
The prosecutors say Avid Telecom disregarded complaints regarding their screening process and “chose profit over running a business that conforms to state and federal law.”
The group of prosecutors say the company chose not to adopt procedures to prevent illegal practices.
“Defendants could have chosen to implement effective and meaningful procedures to prevent – or even significantly mitigate – the perpetration of illegal behavior onto and across Avid Telecom’s network but chose not to do so,” the complaint says.
The legal action stems from the nationwide Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force comprised of 51 attorneys general. The Federal Trade Commission and the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General assisted in the investigation.
In August 2022, Miyares joined the task force investigating those responsible for “routing significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic” across the country.
“It’s obvious that the only way to get this organization to stop harassing Virginians is by taking them to court, and holding them accountable,” said Miyares.
Avid Telecom denied the allegations presented in the lawsuit and will “defend itself vigorously and vindicate its rights and reputation through the legal process,” according to a statement.
“Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, Avid Telecom operates in a manner that is compliant with all applicable state and federal laws and regulations,” the statement read.
“The company has never been found by any court or regulatory authority to have transmitted unlawful traffic and it is prepared to meet with the Attorneys General, as it has on many occasions in the past, to further demonstrate its good faith and lawful conduct.”
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Sarah Roderick-Fitch is The Center Square’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Editor. She has previously worked as an editor, and has been a contributing writer for several publications. In addition to writing and editing, Sarah spent nearly a decade working for non-profit, public policy organizations in the Washington, DC area.
Photo “Jason Miyares” by Jason Miyares. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Karen Neoh. CC BY 2.0.
