BOSTON -- A notorious robocaller at the center of a 25 Investigates report exposing the people behind millions of annoying calls is on the hot seat with Congress and he could be charged with contempt for failing to answer their questions.
In October, Investigative reporter Eric Rasmussen searched for that robocaller, Adrian Abramovich, all over Miami – at business addresses spread across the city and outside his swanky gated community in Coconut Grove, where Abramovich owns a million-dollar home.
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On Wednesday, Abramovich finally came out of hiding and faced questions under oath during a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Those senators called Abramovich the “kingpin of robocallers” for annoying millions of people with telemarketing disguised as local calls.
After the hearing, 25 Investigates asked Abramovich what he had to say to the millions of people he annoyed.
“I have no comments,” Abramovich said.
Abramovich may now face contempt charges for refusing to answer senators’ questions.
“I’m asking about your activities. Isn’t it a fact that they caused harm to consumers?,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked Abramovich.
“I plead the Fifth Amendment. I cannot answer to that question,” said Abramovich.
Abramovich was first exposed by Needham-based TripAdvisor, which opened its own investigation to find out who was making robocalls impersonating the online travel site. The company later notified the feds of its findings in 2016.
Last year, the Federal Communications Commission hit Abramovich with a record $120 million fine – the largest ever fine in FCC history – for blasting out nearly 100 million robocalls to consumers in just a three-month period.
The fake calls – advertising a free TripAdvisor vacation – prompted a flurry of complaints from angry consumers, including one who the FCC said wrote, “I WILL OPEN THE GATES OF HELL ON TRIP ADVISORS. NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER CALL ME LIKE THAT AGAIN. EVER. GOT IT.”
TripAdvisor’s lead investigator, who asked not to be identified, spoke with 25 Investigates publicly for the first time last year about how he helped in the federal investigation that ultimately identified the man behind the calls as Abramovich, a Miami-based prolific robocaller.
“The numbers were just being automatically generated and if someone answered, they knew they had a live person,” said TripAdvisor’s investigator.
Here’s what TripAdvisor’s investigator discovered: If you got a robocall in Boston, it was actually coming from Miami – and the company owned by Abramovich.
The robocalls would impersonate legitimate companies, such as TripAdvisor, Marriott, American Express and Priceline. If you pressed “1” to accept the recorded offer, you were connected to a live person in Mexico who tried to sell you a vacation package that had nothing to do with TripAdvisor or the other companies.
Each robocall costs a fraction of a penny to make, so robocallers only need a few people to sign up for the offers in order to turn a big profit.
Now Abramovich is fighting to avoid paying those fines and tried to convince senators he’s one of the good guys.
“When there’s a robocall, automatically they are criminals… They are criminals. It’s a scam. Not all of (them) scam. Some are legitimate people trying to sell something,” Abramovich told senators.
But that’s not what federal investigators say Abramovich was doing.
The FCC found robocalls generated by Abramovich overwhelmed a medical paging system – putting patients at risk.