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By: AnnMarie Hilton - August 7, 2025
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey is working with his counterparts across the country [including Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell] to launch a multistate effort to crack down on nuisance phone calls from automated recordings.
As part of Operation Robocall Roundup, Frey and 50 bipartisan attorneys general are sending warning letters to 37 voice service providers, which transmit the calls, demanding they stop illegal robocalls being routed through telecom networks. They also sent letters to nearly 100 downstream providers that accept call traffic from those other providers to inform them that they are doing business with bad actors.
“Robocalls are not just a nuisance, they are a primary method for scammers to reach unwitting victims,” Frey said in a news release Thursday. “While the scammers are often out of reach of the American legal system, the companies passing these calls through are not.”
Frey went on to say that the warning letters are the first step in holding those businesses accountable to prevent would-be scammers from using state networks.
According to the attorney general’s office, the notified voice providers have not complied with Federal Communications Commission rules about responding to traceback requests nor have they registered in the robocall mitigation databases. The providers also have not filed a plan to reduce illegal robocalls on their network.
“By disregarding these simple rules, these companies are allowing robocallers onto their phone networks and then passing their calls on to other downstream providers until they reach the phones of Maine people,” the office said.
These efforts from the 51 attorneys general, which includes the District of Columbia, are part of the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force that formed in 2022. The task force investigates and takes legal action against companies responsible for significant volumes of illegal and fraudulent robocalls across the country.
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AnnMarie Hilton grew up in a suburb of Chicago and studied journalism at Northwestern University. Before coming to Maine, she covered education for newspapers in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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