The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission sent joint letters to
three companies that provide voice over IP "gateway"
service, which is used to connect voice over IP calls to the US
telephone network. The letter told the gateway providers to stop
transmitting robocalls from scammers offering fake services related
to COVID-19 and warning them that US voice service providers will
cut off calls delivered by those gateways unless they act by
April 5. As of 5:00 pm on April 6, neither the FCC
nor the FTC had issued any further statements indicating whether
the gateway operators had responded to the letter.
The FCC/FTC action came after a telephone industry group tracked
scam calls back to the three gateway providers – SIPJoin,
Connexum and VoIP Terminator/BLMarketing – and determined
that they were routing the calls into the telephone network. The
scams include calls offering a nonexistent free test kit for
COVID-19 and a campaign that offers HVAC
