RICHMOND, Va. – Attorney General Mark Herring says that robocalls have become something Virginians have to deal with on a daily basis, and he has had enough.
On Tuesday, Herring's office announced that he filed suit against two Roanoke-based telemarketing companies as well as Roanoke resident Bryant Cass for illegal robocalling and deceptive practices.
The suit claims Cass and his companies, Adventis, Inc. and Skyline Metrics, LLC, made hundreds of thousands of unsolicited robocalls nationwide pitching car selling services to people who listed cars for sale on Craigslist, Autotrader.com or similar sites.
"While robocalls are extremely annoying, they can also be dangerous and could potentially scam Virginians out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars," said Herring.
In the complaint, Herring claims that the businesses pulled telephone numbers from websites to make hundreds of calls a day, including numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, and leave prerecorded voicemails.
According to the suit, Cass allegedly used fake names like "Peyton" or Brian" to pitch car selling services for a "small fee" with a "money back guarantee." If people called back, Herring claims in the complaint that they would reach a telemarketing "boiler room" in downtown Roanoke where trained salespeople read off a script to make sales.
Virginia law states that anyone making illegals calls is subject to damages or civil penalties of $500 or more per call.
According to the complaint, Cass and his companies made 586,870 unsolicited telemarketing calls to Virginia numbers from 2014 to 2017 alone.