(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman announced Thursday that his office is investigating four of the nation’s largest telecommunications voice providers as part of an escalating effort to combat illegal robocalls plaguing state residents.
The bipartisan Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force has ordered Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless to immediately cease transmitting suspected illegal robocalls through their networks. The action represents a significant escalation in the ongoing battle against fraudulent telephone solicitations.
“Kentuckians are fed up with the never-ending robocalls that steal their time and try to scam them out of money,” Coleman said in a statement. “Working with AGs on both sides of the aisle, we’re taking on this growing threat to protect Kentucky families from this lawless conduct.”
The investigation reveals that these four companies have collectively facilitated hundreds of millions—and in some cases billions—of suspected illegal calls. According to data from industry traceback investigators, Inteliquent alone received 9,712 traceback notices since 2019 and is estimated to have transmitted 450 million Amazon/Apple imposter robocalls and 1.425 billion Social Security/IRS imposter robocalls over recent years.
Lumen, which received 7,265 traceback notices, transmitted an estimated 261.5 million Amazon/Apple scam calls and 886.2 million Social Security/IRS fraud attempts. Bandwidth and Peerless showed similar patterns, with traceback notices numbering 3,060 and 5,662 respectively.
Thursday’s action builds on Coleman’s August initiative, when his office sent warning letters to 37 smaller voice providers. This latest phase targets companies with substantially larger roles in the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.
A traceback notice is an official alert from industry investigators indicating that a company transmitted a call linked to a suspected illegal robocall campaign. Despite receiving thousands of such notices over multiple years, all four companies continued routing suspicious traffic onto American telephone networks.
The 51-member Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force, formed in 2022 and led by attorneys general from North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio, investigates and prosecutes companies responsible for significant volumes of illegal robocall traffic.
Kentucky residents can register their phone numbers on the state’s No Call List, which is maintained through the National Do Not Call Registry, at the Federal Trade Commission’s website, https://www.donotcall.gov/.
