COLUMBUS – You’ve probably gotten at least one – maybe several in a single day. A phone call telling you that your car warranty is about to expire and to contact the caller.
Auto warranty robocalls are one of the top complaints regulators get from consumers and Ohio attorney general Dave Yost has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to squash a scheme he says is responsible for bombarding U.S. consumers with billions of the illegal calls.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Columbus claims that the 22 defendants at times besieged consumers with more than 77 million auto warranty robocalls a day and also engaged in “spoofing,” the practice of disguising the information that appears on Caller ID.
“Our lives are plagued by robocalls like a swarm of flies. It’s time to get out the fly swatter,” Yost said.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of multiple violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Telemarketing Sales Rule, and Ohio’s Consumer Sales Practices Act and Telephone Solicitation Sales Act by deceptively representing the subject of the call, “spoofing,” and by acting as telephone solicitors without having registered.