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The Telecom Compliance News Press Skip to content ← Older posts May 20, 2012 · 8:39 pm Attention… This web site is a journalistic endeavor for The Telecom Compliance News Press and is published to provide consumers with news and commentary regarding the telemarketing industry. Every effort is made to ensure the accu**** of the information presented here and all statements are made in good faith with the belief that they are correct. To contact an editor regarding any comments or factual corrections, simply add a comment on the news article in question. If you’ve received an unsolicited telemarketing call from Rachel at “Cardholder Services”, Tom with “Home Security”, or other robocall originating from a phone number listed below, it likely came from a telemarketer that has entered into a revenue sharing agreement with a public utility named Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Pacific Telecom is involved in a scheme whereby they profit from the millions of seemingly illegal unsolicited telemarketing sales calls made each week that are identified with their phone numbers, all in apparent violation of 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. Pacific Telecom has a foreign “subsidiary” registered in Belize, which seemingly acts as a “shell” company to hide the iden***y of the individuals who initiate these outbound telemarketing calls and makes it difficult for regulators to investigate this activity. Our ****ysis of FTC consumer complaint data shows that Pacific Telecom phone numbers are the target of over 25% of consumer telemarketing complaints to the FTC. A staggering 208,362 complaints were filed with the FTC a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers over a recent 3 month period alone. The mastermind behind these schemes appears to be an attorney in Portland Oregon named F Antone Accuardi. Although multiple State and Federal investigations are under way, so far Accuardi has not been brought to justice. PLEASE take 10 minutes of your time to submit an online complaint to State and Federal regulators so we can put an end to the damage that is being inflicted on the public. In order to identify the State regulator who needs to hear your complaint, click on the phone number prefix below that matches the number that you see on your caller ID: Phone Number State Rate Center 206-496-0**x WA SEATTLE 253-246-8**x WA KENT 253-382-9**x WA TACOMA 360-328-8**x WA SILVERDALE 360-474-3**x WA MARYSVILLE 360-529-6**x WA OLYMPIA 425-390-8**x WA RENTON 425-658-8**x WA KIR****D 425-953-8**x WA EVERETT 503-457-1**x OR TILLAMOOK 503-468-5**x OR ASTORIA 503-563-0**x OR STFRD-SNDY 503-592-2**x OR CANBYNEEDY 503-770-2**x OR CHARBONNEU 503-773-0**x OR NORTH PL 503-837-2**x OR DALLAS 503-850-0**x OR CLACKAMAS 503-898-8**x OR REDLAND 503-902-8**x OR WOODBURN 971-208-9**x OR SALEM 971-213-1**x OR SHERWOOD 971-217-9**x OR ******TON 971-220-1**x OR GRESHAM 971-248-8**x OR VERNONIA 971-259-6**x OR AMITY 971-277-8**x OR PORTLAND 971-333-8**x OR HOOD LAND 971-343-1**x OR SILVERTON 971-373-0**x OR PORTLAND 971-373-1**x OR PORTLAND 971-373-2**x OR PORTLAND 406-219-2**x MT BOZEMAN 406-224-9**x MT LIVINGSTON 406-290-3**x MT COLUMBUS 406-290-8**x MT COLUMBUS 406-351-4**x MT FORSYTH 406-426-3**x MT RED LODGE 406-478-2**x MT SIDNEY 406-478-7**x MT SIDNEY 406-530-5**x MT LAUREL 406-548-9**x MT BOZEMAN 406-623-2**x MT HARDIN 406-623-3**x MT HARDIN 406-640-8**x MT WYELLOWSTN 406-715-0**x MT BILLINGS 406-715-1**x MT BILLINGS 406-720-2**x MT COL***** 406-852-8**x MT MILES CITY 406-931-3**x MT BIG TIMBER 406-942-5**x MT GLASGOW 406-948-6**x MT GLENDIVE 406-948-8**x MT GLENDIVE 701-217-1**x ND SPENCER 701-264-5**x ND ****INSON 701-264-6**x ND ****INSON 701-301-4**x ND CENTER 701-******** ND MINOT 701-509-8**x ND MINOT 701-625-2**x ND MARTIN 701-625-5**x ND MARTIN 701-661-1**x ND EMMET 701-661-3**x ND EMMET 701-712-0**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-1**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-2**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-3**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-4**x ND BISMARCK 701-920-9**x ND CENTER 701-923-1**x ND SPENCER 20 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group May 19, 2012 · 7:58 pm About Pacific Telecom Communications Group Pacific Telecom Communications Group is a company operated by F Antone Accuardi, along with Steve Hamilton (aka Florin Florica) who acts as a “front” man in regulatory filings. It is registered as a public utility in the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana and North Dakota. They are registered as a Compe***ive Local Exc****e Carrier, which enables them to obtain blocks of telephone numbers. They currently hold 69,000 telephone numbers in area codes across those 4 states – these numbers are listed on this site. (On August 3rd, 2012, Pacific Telecom’s certificate was canceled in Oregon due to violations of utility rules.) However, Pacific Telecom does not operate as a typical telephone company. Based on discussions with Pacific Telecom, our understanding is that their services are solely used in connection with unsolicited telemarketing calls. Those 69,000 telephone numbers are only used for telemarketing purposes. The high volume telemarketing campaigns****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers comprise a wide range of dubious pitches, including “lower your credit card interest rate” ploys, “home protection” schemes, and “free cruise” offers. These unsolicited telemarketing campaigns do not comply with Federal or State telemarketing laws. Calls are made to phone numbers listed on the Federal Government’s “Do Not Call” registry. Spreading out these telemarketing campaigns across many telephone numbers helps to reduce the volume of complaints****ociated with any specific telephone number. It’s much easier to get away with a million unsolicited telemarketing calls distributed across 1,000 numbers instead of having all of the complaints a***nst a single phone number. According to our ****ysis, 25% of all consumer telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC in a recent 3 month period were made a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers. Over 200,000 complaints were filed a***nst them during that brief time period alone. The outbound telemarketing calls do not travel across Pacific Telecom’s network. Instead, these calls are likely transmitted from data centers outside of the United States through a process called “predictive dialing.” Many numbers are dialed, but only a subset of calls are picked up by a human – when a live telemarketing victim does answer the phone, the call is routed back to a call center in the United States. Another approach involves playing a recorded marketing pitch that instructs the consumer to “press 1″ to speak to a sales representative. So, if you’re going to break the law anyway, why bother transmitting your real telephone number in the Caller ID? As you’ll see below, the answer is because that’s where the profits come from. Directly Profiting from Unsolicited Telemarketing? Pacific Telecom’s telephone numbers are Calling Name (CNAM) provisioned and stored in a special database accessible to other telecom utilities. This means that for any outbound call that transmits a special “ANI” code corresponding to one of their phone numbers, Pacific Telecom can collect a fee for transmitting the caller ID information to the Local Exc****e Carrier receiving the call. When you see a Pacific Telecom phone number in your caller ID (along with some name like “card services”), your phone company has to reimburse Pacific Telecom for downloading that info from the database where it’s stored. CNAM fees are typically fractions of a cent per call. When these fees are aggregated across tens of millions of outbound calls per week, it amounts to significant money. Huge volumes of unsolicited telemarketing calls can drive significant revenue into the pockets of Pacific Telecom and their affiliates. Here are several marketing slides published by Fred Accuardi, who is an apparent partner in this scheme with Pacific Telecom: Revenue Sharing _01 Revenue Sharing _02 Revenue Sharing _03 Revenue Sharing _04 Revenue Sharing _05 Revenue Sharing _06 Revenue Sharing _07 Revenue Sharing _08 In addition, here is the language that the VP of Fred Accuardi’s firm uses to describe their services: TMC is a 37 year old telecommunications consulting firm. We provide revenue $$, ani codes and a easy portal for on the fly caller id name c****e to out bound call centers. We also provide revenue$$ for any and all call backs generated from those calls. If you are a call center and you are not currently getting paid on out bound calls to the US, you are leaving money on the table. Telemarketing appears to run in the family – Fred Accuardi is not only the ***her of Pacific Telecom attorney F Antone Accuardi, but a host of other Accuardi family members are also involved. Hiding Activity Behind A Belize “Shell” Company Pacific Telecom hides behind its public utility status to claim that it’s an innocent victim of folks who misuse it’s services. Steve Hamilton and attorney F Antone Accuardi direct all blame for millions of unlawful telemarketing calls a***nst it’s “subscribers.” However, it appears that right now Pacific Telecom may only have a single subscriber, who not coincidentally is closely affiliated with them and even apparently shares one or more of the same personnel. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom names International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers used for illegal telemarketing. Not surprisingly, International Telephone Corporation appears to be operated by none other than Fred Accuardi out of his Portland Oregon office. In fact, Accuardi keeps the web site for this Belize company on the same web server as his Telephone Management Corp, where those marketing slides above were published. Furthermore, Fred Accuardi’s son, F Antone Accuardi, portrays himself as an employee of both Pacific Telecom and Fred Accuardi’s operation. Fred Accuardi’s role in this scheme appears to be as the one who actively recruits telemarketers to place ***dreds of thousands of calls identified with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. In addition, Accuardi also appears to be the party who collects the CNAM fees owed from other telephone companies, then distributes this revenue to the other individuals involved in this scheme. All of these details were unveiled in litigation relating to a previous incarnation of this scheme that involved the same players: Steve Hamilton, Fred Accuardi and F Antone Accuardi. Pacific Telecom’s Defense A***nst Allegations of Illegal Telemarketing So how is Pacific Telecom able to be involved in this reprehensible and unlawful conduct without the FTC shutting them down? Well, they simply use “ignorance” as their main defense. Pacific Telecom suggests that there is an “arms length” distance between them and the individuals committing the crimes, so they are absolved of any liability. However, there seems to be ample evidence that shows this is not true, as the veil has been lifted on the Belize “shell” company. Hypothetically, even if Pacific Telecom somehow is not aware of the illicit activity that’s occurring, their willful ignorance of this illegal telemarketing scheme violates 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule: ****isting and facilitating . It is a deceptive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a person to provide substantial****istance or support to any seller or telemarketer when that person knows or consciously avoids knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in any act or practice that violates §§310.3(a), (c) or (d), or §310.4 of this Rule. Can Anyone Stop Pacific Telecom Communications Group? Pacific Telecom seems to believe that they found the “magic formula” that allows them to profit (directly or indirectly) from unlawful telemarketing without violating the Telecommunications Protection Act or the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. So far they’ve managed to fly under the radar of the understaffed and under funded FTC. In order to put an end to these practices, it’s important to voice your complaints not only to the FTC, but directly to the Public Utilities Commissions in the states where Pacific Telecom operates as a telecom utility. These Commissions have a mandate to regulate utilities for the good of the public. However, Public Utility Commissions are notorious for being “cozy” with the companies that they are charged with regulating. Don’t expect them to create or enforce rules unless there is a loud and sustained effort. If you have taken the time to read this far down in this blog post, then I bet you are tired of getting telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Please take a moment to fill out an online complaint form to share your feelings with these regulatory agencies: Online Complaint to the FTC Federal Do Not Call Complaint Form: https://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx?panel=2 Oregon State Bar****ociation Complaints regarding Pacific Telecom’s leader and licensed attorney F Antone Accuardi can be sent to: [email protected] FBI F Antone Accuardi is alleged to launder money from Pacific Telecom through his attorney trust bank account in Oregon and into foreign accounts at Scotiabank in Belize and other destinations. Any criminal activity can be reported to the FBI here: https://tips.fbi.gov/ Online Complaints to the State of Oregon Oregon Public Utilities Commission Online Complaints: http://apps.puc.state.or.us/consumer/complaint.asp Oregon Attorney General’s Office Online Complaints: https://www.doj.state.or.us/consumer/complaint.shtml Oregon Governor’s Office Online Complaints: http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/contact.shtml Online Complaints to the State of Washington Washington Attorney General Online Complaints: https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/ComplaintForm.aspx Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission Online Complaints: http://www.utc.wa.gov/consumers/Pages/ConsumerComplaintForm.aspx Online Complaints to the State of North Dakota North Dakota Attorney General Online Complaints: http://www.ag.nd.gov/ConsumerProtection/ConsumerProtection/ConsumerComplaint North Dakota Public Service Commission: Informal Complaints filed by calling: 701-328-2400, formal complaints can be submitted in writing by emailing [email protected] Online Complaints to the State of Montana Montana Attorney General Online Complaints: https://app.doj.mt.gov/apps/Oscar/default.aspx Montana Public Service Commission Online Complaints: http://psc.mt.gov/consumers/complaints/ 19 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group December 12, 2012 · 11:31 pm FTC Receives Nearly One Million Telemarketing Complaints Involving F Antone Accuardi During the period of January 1, 2011 to October 22, 2012, the FTC received 982,999 consumer complaints a***nst telephone numbers belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. These complaints represented up to 32% of all monthly telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC during this period. The complaints peaked at at total of 97,950 in June 2012. FTC Complaints A***nst Pacific Telecom - jan 2011 - october 2012 These complaints were filed by consumers who registered their home telephone numbers on the Federal Do Not Call registry. The largest category of complaints consisted of reports of “robo calls” regarding “card services” and other credit card related schemes. The second highest category of complaints involved “home security” robo calls. Overall, these calls suggest a pattern of outright illegal activity that in many cases represent efforts to financially defraud consumers. Federal law states that businesses engaging in illegal automated telemarketing calls to phone numbers on the Do Not Call registry are strictly liable for damages of $500 per violation. The complaints directed a***nst Pacific Telecom represent damages of nearly $500 million. As we previously reported, the North Dakota Attorney General’s office found that Pacific Telecom Communications Group is operated by Oregon attorney F Antone Accuardi. Accuardi set up a “shell” company registered in the country of ***zil, which appears to be an effort to disguise his involvement in illegal telemarketing activity. Accuardi’s efforts to set up “shell” companies to hide illicit telemarketing activity may in fact expose him to personable liability for the damages caused to consumers. Accuardi and his ***her Fred, who is also involved in these telemarketing schemes, own a variety of****ets in the Oregon area, in addition to funds suspected to be held in offs**** bank accounts. 1 Comment Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group October 22, 2012 · 10:18 pm North Dakota Attorney General Targets Pacific Telecom and F Antone Accuardi for Violations On October 3, 2012, an investigator with the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office signed an affidavit detailing violations of North Dakota State law by Pacific Telecom Communications Group, Steve Hamilton, and F Antone Accuardi. The affidavit can be viewed here. The Attorney General’s office describes conduct that suggests a willful and blatant disregard for State and Federal law: * Pacific Telecom “repeatedly failed” to fully cooperate with subpoenas issued by the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office. * Pacific Telecom was notified of the illegal activities****ociated with their services as far back as Feburary 3, 2011, yet has failed to halt this activity in any meaningful way. Their facilitation of this activity cons***utes a violation of N.D.C.C. § 51-15-02.3. * Pacific Telecom owner Steve Hamilton falsely claimed to the Attorney General’s Office that he “terminated his contracts” with illegal telemarketers, when in fact his affiliation with illegal telemarketing continued uninterrupted. * Oregon attorney F Antone Accuardi “is responsible for a large percentage of the illegal telephone calls made using Pacific Telecom’s telephone numbers.” This affidavit also indicates that Pacific Telecom is now operated by F Antone Accuardi. We previously detailed Accuardi’s role in leading the Belize “shell” company that Pacific Telecom uses to engage in revenue sharing agreements with telemarketers who engage in illegal telemarketing. The mounting evidence of F Antone Accuardi’s active involvement in this scheme to profit from illegal telemarketing is of particular significance: as a licensed member of the Oregon State Bar, this conduct represents a serious violation of the rules of professional conduct. The specific rules were reviewed in a previous article So far, no sanctions have been issued a***nst Mr. Accuardi. However, the Oregon State Bar****ociation collects reports of professional conduct violations via information emailed to [email protected]. Although no official complaint form is necessary, they offer a form to help facilitate complaints. Any reports of professional misconduct involving F Antone Accuardi should include factual information relating to his activities, such as the affidavit from the investigator with the North Dakota Attorney General’s office. F Anthony Antone Accuardi Bar Number 974613 Status Active Member Admit Date 9/22/1997 Mailing Address F Anthony Antone Accuardi 64783 E Lupine Dr Rhododendron OR 97049 County Clackamas Phone 971 404-4185 Fax Email [email protected] Website www.barefootinvestments.com Disciplinary History Date Sanctions Details Source No Disciplinary Sanctions for this Member http://www.osbar.org/members/display.asp?b=974613 3 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group October 8, 2012 · 11:46 pm ** Pacific Telecom’s “Robo-Call” Revenue Sharing Scheme Revealed ** Millions of illegal unsolicited telemarketing calls are made each week by individuals who utilize phone numbers belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Recently, a sales broker for Pacific Telecom’s services shed some light on how they created a “subsidiary” based in the country of Belize to apparently shield the iden***y of Pacific Telecom and protect Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and Fred Accuardi from legal liability, while at the same time allowing them to profit from seemingly illegal telemarketing calls. Additionally, this sales representative for Pacific Telecom actually provided evidence of his own activities initiating outbound “robo-calls” using Pacific Telecom’s services. Partnering with High Volume Telemarketers Joseph Sanchez operates a web site called DollarDials.com, where he markets Pacific Telecom’s revenue sharing service for telemarketers. His web site describes it this way: If you are a high volume SIP customer with at over 300,000 calls per month terminating in the United States, then we can get YOU compensated for the traffic you create. Federal Communications rules prohibit telemarketers from blocking Caller ID information and require them to pass accurate caller ID numbers. After signing up, you get access to our Caller ID management portal that will allow you to stay in compliance with these FCC regulations while optimizing your campaigns. The irony is that Mr. Sanchez attempts to position this revenue sharing scheme as a way to comply with FCC rules, when in fact it is clear that these services are used by unscrupulous telemarketers who are in direct violation of FCC and FTC rules. Profiting From Illegal Telemarketing Calls When a telemarketer signs up for this revenue sharing scheme, they don’t contract directly with Pacific Telecom, but rather with a company registered in the country of Belize named International Telephone Corporation. In an email, Mr. Sanchez describes this en***y as “a subsidiary of the phone company and setup for protection of the investors.” He specifically states in his email that “You are contracting direct with phone carrier.” The “phone carrier” referred to here is Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Mr. Sanchez says that International Telephone Corporation will pay telemarketers $.00075 per outbound call where the Caller ID data is successfully transmitted. In telecom jargon, these are called “dips” into a caller ID database. The telephone company for the consumer who receives the unsolicited telemarketing call must pay Pacific Telecom for the right to “dip” into the caller ID database in order to retrieve the “calling name” information that’s displayed on the phone. Incidentally, the rate of $.00075 per outbound call appears to be a small fraction of the “dip” fee, suggesting that Pacific Telecom actually reaps most of the profits when an unsolicited call is made. Mr. Sanchez is well versed in this scheme and summarizes it in an email below. The “ANI” acronym seen in the message is simply a reference to Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Attached are two do***ents that we need signed, scanned and emailed by back. Also the rate you receive is .00075 per dip. On 5 million dips, you would receive a check or direct wire to your account of $3750.00. After we receive the do***ents back, your online account is created where you can log in, access your anis, manipulate your caller i.d. display, and view reports such as dips by ANI, Dips by Carrier, Dips by Date, dips by month all in the form of last month, month to date or year to date. A***n we are not middle men but rather sales****ociates representing the phone carrier, all payments, reporting and online accounting is conducted by them. You are contracting direct with phone carrier and that’s a good thing!! Any questions please call me direct at 815-553-2683. Joseph Sanchez DollarDials.com a division of Virtual Marketing Consultants, Inc. Direct: 815-553-2683 In a phone conversation, Mr. Sanchez emphasized that proceeds from this scheme are provided in the form of a check or a wire transfer from International Telephone Corporation, which helps to conceal the involvement of Pacific Telecom. When asked if a telemarketer’s iden***y will be revealed if Pacific Telecom is forced to turn over subscriber information, Mr. Sanchez writes that “… due to the setup of the company we are all protected.“ This is a clear indication that this Belize “subsidiary” is in place to prevent consumers or Law Enforcement from learning the true iden***y of the individuals****ociated with illegal telemarketing calls involving Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. In fact, when the Tennessee Regulatory Authority sent a series of subpoenas to Pacific Telecom in an effort to learn the iden***y of the subscribers making illegal telemarketing calls, Pacific Telecom simply provided the name of International Telephone Corporation. The use of this anonymous foreign corporation effectively blocked the TRA’s investigation into these telemarketing calls. The intent behind Pacific Telecom’s creation of International Telephone Corporation is critical, because creating a “shell” company for the purpose of evading criminal and civil legal liability can in some cir***stances “lift the corporate veil” and expose company officers to direct legal liability. A review of International Telephone Corporation’s customer contract reveals that they are executed by none other than F Antone Accuardi, who represents himself as “Vice President & General Counsel.” It’s no coincidence that in communications with regulators and law enforcement agencies, F Antone Accuardi represents himself as General Counsel for Pacific Telecom. ITC CNAM (NR) Service Order Acknowledgement ITC CNAM CABS (NR) Addendum We obtained this contract in October 2012 from Mr. Sanchez. The last contract revision is dated August 2011, indicating that this latest scheme has been taking place for over a year. Direct Knowledge of Illegal Activity? A review of the agreement between International Telephone Corporation and telemarketers shows that it’s the customer’s responsibility to comply with state and federal law: Customer agrees to comply with all applicable local, state and federal rules and laws when using INTLTEL Services, including, but not limited to, those rules and laws which may pertain to consumer fraud, obscenity, telemarketing and/or “no call” lists (e.g., Part 310 of the FTC’s rules and Part 64 of the FCC’s rules). Likewise, Customer warrants that it has obtained all government approvals, licenses, authorizations, consents or permits necessary to provide the services for which Customer will use INTLTEL’s****igned numbers. Customer agrees to indemnify and hold INTLTEL, its local providers and its database providers harmless from any of Customer’s actions, or actions of Customer’s employees, agents, subcontractors and authorized users, which are not in compliance with any such, rules, laws, regulations or requirements. While this language may sound impressive, there is abundant evidence that this provision is simply not enforced in any meaningful way. In our previous ****ysis of FTC consumer complaints, we established that over 200,000 complaints were filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers over a 3 month period alone. (A larger effort is currently underway to ****yze FTC consumer complaints going back to 2011.) Mr. Sanchez describes how Pacific Telecom actually tracks the number of consumer complaints directed at their phone numbers: … each client receives daily DNC opt-out lists each morning that must be uploaded to your master dnc accounts. They are generated by people who call back the phone number that appears on their caller i.d. Those that do are told they received a marketing message if you want to opt out press 1. He provided screen captures of his own web based account with Pacific Telecom’s International Telephone site that show the full range of reporting available to Pacific Telecom and their telemarketers: Note that it appears that Pacific Telecom and their customers have the full ability to view complaints reported to them by consumers calling back Pacific Telecom phone numbers. It’s important to stress that using an automated dialer to initiate unsolicited telemarketing sales calls to consumers on the Federal Do Not Call list is illegal with few exceptions, regardless of any “opt out” system that’s in place. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Pacific Telecom and their affiliates are fully aware of consumer complaints, yet apparently fail to honor these “opt out” requests anyway. Consumers who dial Pacific Telecom phone numbers and request to be put on their “Do Not Call” list continue to receive these illegal calls. F Antone Accuardi has personally received complaints about illegal telemarketing involving specific Pacific Telecom phone numbers. When those phone numbers are compared a***nst FTC consumer complaint data, we see that huge volumes of complaints continued a***nst those phone numbers, suggesting that Mr. Accuardi took absolutely no action to halt this illegal activity. What’s particularity appalling is that F Antone Accuardi has represented in statements to the Oregon Department of Justice that he doesn’t know the iden***y of the en***ies behind the illegal telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom phone numbers. However, not only is Mr. Accuardi “Vice President” of Pacific Telecom’s foreign subsidiary that provides the revenue sharing program, but it appears that he personally signs the agreements with the telemarketers. Pacific Telecom Representative Initiating Illegal Telemarketing Calls Joseph Sanchez Mr. Sanchez states that he is an “associate representing the phone carrier.” It is also clear that he benefits from Pacific Telecom’s revenue sharing scheme through his own telemarketing activities that he advertises on another web site, VoiceLeads.us: Direct Live Transfers … Field phone calls from people that pressed “1″ wanting to speak with you anywhere, anytime. Field live calls in your home, office or call center. Clients like this lead because they speak to the prospect live after they opted in by pressing the one key. Talk to prospects while they are in the “mood,” live. This lead is great for selling over the phone or setting appointments as well! These “direct live transfers” occur when a consumer receives an unsolicited “robo call” with an automated marketing message that instructs them to “press 1″ to speak with a live agent. Mr. Sanchez provided screen ****s of his own revenue sharing account with Pacific Telecom. These screen****s reveal just a few of the telephone numbers and caller ID name he utilizes in his outbound unsolicited calling campaigns: Mr. Sanchez shared during a phone conversation that he conducts “robo calling” to pitch various “insurance” products. In an email followup to that call, he stated the following: I use live telemarketers on a predicative system that cold calls business prospects. When the prospect answers my telemarketers conduct a survey. Telemarketing complaint site 800Notes.com confirms this through countless consumer complaints a***nst the Pacific Telecom phone numbers shown in Mr. Sanchez’s account in the above screen ****. One consumer describes these calls succinctly: Recorded Ad for “Life Insurance” – NO company name or other ID mentioned. http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-425-390-8956 Conclusion Just to recap, here is what we have learned: * Pacific Telecom Communications Group has a “subsidiary” in Belize named International Telephone Corporation. * Pacific Telecom, via it’s International Telephone Corporation subsidiary, provides a “revenue sharing” program whereby they profit from unsolicited telemarketing calls. * F Antone Accuardi signs the contracts with Telemarketers and represents himself as “Vice President & General Counsel.” * These Telemarketers make literally millions of illegal unsolicited “robo-calls” utilizing Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers, which earn revenue for both the telemarketer and Pacific Telecom. * A sales****ociate for Pacific Telecom appears to personally engage in initiating “robo-calls” using Pacific Telecom phone numbers. These facts are a clear indication that Pacific Telecom and its leaders Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and Fred Accuardi are likely in violation of a number of laws, including 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, which states: ****isting and facilitating . It is a deceptive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a person to provide substantial****istance or support to any seller or telemarketer when that person knows or consciously avoids knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in any act or practice that violates §§310.3(a), (c) or (d), or §310.4 of this Rule. The FTC publishes a guide to help businesses comply with the Telemarketing Sales Rule. This is what they have to say about the “Assisting and Facilitating” rule: ****isting and Facilitating Sellers or Telemarketers Who Violate the Rule is Prohibited It is a violation of the Rule to substantially****ist a seller or telemarketer while knowing — or consciously avoiding knowing — that the seller or telemarketer is violating the Rule. Thus taking deliberate steps to ensure one’s own ignorance of a seller or telemarketer’s Rule violations is an ineffective strategy to avoid liability. The help that a third-party provides must be more than casual or incidental dealing with a seller or telemarketer that is not related to a violation of the Rule. For example, cleaning a telemarketer’s office, delivering lunches to the telemarketer’s premises, or engaging in some other activity with little or no relation to the conduct that violates the Rule would not be enough to support liability as an****istor or facilitator. Third parties who do business with sellers and telemarketers should be aware that their dealings may provide a factual basis to support an inference that they know — or deliberately remain ignorant of — the Rule violations of these sellers and telemarketers. For example, a third party who provides sellers or telemarketers with mailing lists, help in creating sales scripts or direct mail pieces, or any other substantial****istance while knowing or deliberately avoiding knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in a Rule violation may be violating the Rule. http://business.ftc.gov/do***ents/bus27-complying-telemarketing-sales-rule#assisting So far, regulators and law enforcement have not taken decisive action to bring Pacific Telecom and its leaders to justice. The torrent of unsolicited telemarketing calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers will not stop until consumers successfully make this issue a priority with the State and Federal agencies who are charged with enforcing the laws that Pacific Telecom is accused of breaking 3 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Joseph Sanchez, Pacific Telecom Communications Group · 2:26 am Pacific Telecom Faces Loss of North Dakota Utility Status On October 1st, 2012, the North Dakota Public Services Commission filed a formal complaint a***nst Pacific Telecom Communications Group, available here. This complaint sites a wide range of serious violations, including: * Pacific Telecom failed to provide required evidence of their authority to conduct business in North Dakota, despite their acquisition of North Dakota telephone numbers and an agreement to provide local exc****e service in North Dakota. * Failure to notify the North Dakota Public Services Commission as required regarding their revocation of their utility status Oregon. The Public Services Commission underscored their concern of Pacific Telecom’s conduct by specifically requesting that their public utility registration be revoked, in addition to any further “just and proper” relief that is warranted given these cir***stances. Pacific Telecom has a period of 20 days to respond to this complaint before the Public Services Commission convenes a formal hearing where their utility registration can be officially revoked. Leave a Comment Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group September 11, 2012 · 5:18 am 25% of Consumer Complaints to the FTC Target Pacific Telecom Communications Group Consumers submitted 208,362 complaints to the FTC regarding unsolicited telephone calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers between the dates of between June 2012 and August 24, 2012. Over 25% of all complaints submitted to the FTC during this period were filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers. These statistics were calculated from data received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the FTC. The FTC provided an electronic copy of all consumer complaints submitted via the www.DoNotCall.gov website between the dates of June 2012 and August 24, 2012. These statistics convey the magnitude of the damages being inflicted on the public by Steve Hamilton of Pacific Telecom and his affiliate Fred Accuardi. Thousands of Complaints Per Day A***nst Pacific Telecom Here’s a chart that demonstrates the thousands of consumer complaints filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers on a daily basis. Overall, the huge magnitude of illegal calls seems to be holding steady over time: Total Complaints A***nst Pacific Telecom vs. All Other Unsolicited Callers This next chart shows that out of a total of 815,872 consumer telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC during this time frame, over 25% of them are directed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers: Total Complaints A***nst Top 10 Unsolicited Callers This chart il****rates the sheer magnitude of complaints a***nst Pacific Telecom in relation to the next highest complaint targets: Pacific Telecom Phone Numbers with Top 20 Highest Complaint Totals During the June to August time frame ****yzed here, consumers submitted complaints to the FTC a***nst 1,550 unique Pacific Telecom phone numbers. This confirms their apparent strategy to spread out the complaint volume across a wide range of phone numbers. Here is a chart that shows the top 20 Pacific Telecom phone numbers with the highest complaint totals: Conclusions The sheer volume of complaints a***nst Pacific Telecom is simply enormous. For each consumer complaint submitted to the FTC a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers, there are likely thousands of other consumers that did not file a complaint, meaning that literally 10′s of millions of unsolicited telephone calls are being placed each week. The only reasonable conclusion is that Pacific Telecom is either actively involved in****isting these telemarketers or is willfully ignorant of the fact that their services are being used exclusively for illegal purposes. 3 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 30, 2012 · 1:23 am Fred Accuardi and Illegal Telemarketing Fred Accuardi is the president of Telephone Management Corporation, which operates out of an office here in Portland, Oregon. It appears that Fred and his crew have been accused of being involved in illicit telemarketing schemes going back to 2006 and perhaps earlier. Fred Accuardi is currently alleged to profit from illegal telemarketing through a shell company registered in Belize named International Telephone Corporation. This company operates with direct support from Pacific Telecom Communications Group. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom names International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers used for illegal telemarketing. Fred Accuardi seems to have accidentally revealed his****ociation with International Telephone Corp last week. Here’s what is needed to make this scheme work: Public Telecom Utility – Owns the CNAM provisioned phone numbers. Deflects complaints a***nst their “subscribers” illegal use of their telephone numbers. They can accurately claim that no outbound telemarketing calls are made from their network and are willfully ignorant of the illegal activity they support. Fee Collector – Fred Accuardi and Company – Telecom utilities are obligated to pay a tiny fee when they retrieve the Caller ID information from an incoming call. Fred Accuardi’s firm collects these fees that result when millions of telemarketing calls are made each week. This revenue is shared with the telemarketer who is doing the illegal calling. Telemarketer – Initiate millions of illegal telemarketing calls per week to phone customers who subscribe to Caller ID. They simply have to identify their calls with the public utility’s CNAM provisioned numbers to enable Fred Accuardi to collect the CNAM fees. The telemarketer****umes the most risk in this scheme: they are the easiest to prosecute for this activity and it’s not uncommon for the FTC to take legal action a***nst them. However, there are always plenty of telemarketers willing to take a chance to make quick money. Fred Accuardi’s****ociation with this type of unlawful telemarketing is nothing new. In fact, it appears that he pulled off the same scheme several years ago using phone numbers provided by Steve Hamilton, who now operates Pacific Telecom. Accuardi Scheme Involving DigitCom and Telephone Management Corporation In 2009, Telephone Management Corporation was sued by Verizon Wireless for it’s role in an illegal telemarketing scheme pit****g dubious “auto warranties.” Here’s how the District Court summarized Verizon’s allegations: According to Plaintiffs, “[t]he TMC Defendants’ role in the telemarketing scheme is to obtain ANIs [automatic number identifications that appear on a call recipient’s caller ID equipment] from non-party telecommunications service providers and to provide those ANIs to the Caller Defendants.” Id. at 5 (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 23-31). In turn, Plaintiffs allege, the Caller Defendants use the ANIs to “obscure their iden***ies from call recipients by rotating the ANIs constantly in direct contravention of the FTC’s telemarketing rules.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 29, 31). Plaintiffs further allege that “[w]hen Verizon Wireless customers and employees have attempted to call back the ANIs that appear on their Caller IDs when they receive Telemarketing Calls, they have been unable to learn the iden***y of the caller, as they have received an automated message that the call was received ‘in error’ and directing them to press ‘1’ to be removed from the call list.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 29-32). Moreover, Plaintiffs****ert that “[t]he TMC Defendants are aware of, or willfully blind to, the fact that the Caller Defendants’ use of large numbers of ANIs is to conceal their iden***ies from call recipients and to evade the consequences of illegal telemarketing.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶ 31). Additionally, Plaintiffs allege that “Joseph Johnson, an officer of Voice Solutions[,] testified in his deposition [that] TMC was aware of the Caller Defendants’ involvement in illegal telemarketing.” Id. Lastly,Plaintiffs****ert that “Verizon Wireless has repeatedly informed the TMC Defendants of illegal telemarketing campaigns and requested their cooperation in halting such calls; however, TMC has not cooperated.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶ 31; Marx. Cert. ¶¶ 3-6, Exs. B-D). Although the substance of Verizon’s claims a***nst Fred Accuardi’s company were seemingly confirmed during this litigation, the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed after over a year of legal maneuvering. During this scheme, Fred Accuardi and company appear to have been utilizing telephone numbers from a public telecom utility named DigitCom Services Inc. Incidentally, the President of DigitCom was none other than Steve Hamilton, who now operates Pacific Telecom. Fred Accuardi appears to have profited from the millions of unsolicited telemarketing calls via what his firm called their “CNAM Revenue Sharing Program,” which was made possible through their use of DigitCom’s CNAM provisioned telephone numbers: Accuardi’s Current Scheme Involving Pacific Telecom Communications Group and International Telephone Corporation These days, Fred Accuardi appears to operate the same scheme, but this time his activities are conducted through a shell company registered in Belize called International Telephone Corporation. Although this company is registered in Belize, it seems to be operated by Fred Accuardi and his team out of his Portland Oregon office. In fact, their web site shares the same Portland Oregon web server as Telephone Management Corporation. Here is the web portal telemarketers use to access their CNAM revenue reports. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom named International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers that were used for illegal telemarketing. Pacific Telecom most likely has full knowledge of this scheme. Fred Accuardi’s son, F Antone Accuardi, is the general legal council for both Pacific Telecom and Telephone Management Corporation. As an attorney registered in the State of Oregon, F Antone Accuardi has an obligation to report his knowledge of illegal activity to law enforcement. Stay tuned for a future article where we hope to publish difficult to obtain records that will fully do***ent the iden***ies of the anonymous owners behind International Telephone Corporation. In the mean time, Fred Accuardi has not been charged with any crimes by authorities, nor has the FTC taken action a***nst him or Pacific Telecom for their alleged roles in illegal telemarketing. 5 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 24, 2012 · 5:09 pm Another Recording of Illegal Telemarketing Call Involving Pacific Telecom Phone Number Recently, an individual who has been harassed by unsolicited telemarketing calls passed along a recording of one of those calls from August 21, 2012 from 206-496-0929, which is a Washington State phone number belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. The Caller ID name was transmitted as: “Winner” This telemarketing call was made to a residential phone number registered on the Federal Do Not Call list. This individual has never given any consent to be called from these telemarketers and in fact has struggled to find a way to get the calls to stop. Click HERE to listen to this recording. This is a transcript of the telemarketing pitch: *****o. The FBI reports there is a home break-in every 15 seconds. Your local police recommend you protect your home. If you will allow us to place a small sign in your yard, we will install a new security system at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever. There is no cost for the system or the installation whatsoever. To hear more, press 1 now. To be placed on our do not call list, press 9. It’s important to note that this call is a sales call for home security services - while the telemarketer emphatically states that there is “absolutely no cost to you whatsoever,” consumers report that this scheme involves requiring the consumer to pay an upfront fee for the security device (which is supposed refunded later), along with monthly fees to subscribe to the security monitoring service. This appears to be a clear violation of both the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule and 47 USC § 227. If any other readers have any recordings of telemarketing calls involving Pacific Telecom phone numbers, please leave a comment here if you would like this recording published in a future article. 5 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 17, 2012 · 11:57 pm Are Pacific Telecom’s Services Sold to Telemarketers Through a Shell Company Registered in Belize? This article is going to show the connections between the “public utility” Pacific Telecom Communications Group and their customer in Belize who uses phone numbers that are****ociated with illegal telemarketing. Here’s how it looks like this scheme works: Pacific Telecom Communications Group - Registers as a Public Utility in several States, obtains blocks of telephone numbers. Operated by Steve Hamilton, with support from F Antone Accuardi. International Telephone Corporation – A 3rd party legal en***y, registered in Belize, who according to a subpoena, utilizes Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers identified in illegal telemarketing calls. Technology infrastructure is based in Portland Oregon and hosted by a company called www.spiretech.com. Appears to be a shell company for Fred and F Antone Accuardi. Unknown Telemarketers - Purchase International Telephone Corporation’s web based call center services that allow them to “handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns” from a laptop. Our guess is that the individuals who use these services for illegal purposes are based in the United States. A previous post on this blog asked the question, Are Pacific Telecom and Telephone Management Corp. Partners in Telemarketing? In that article, we detailed some connections between these two companies, including the fact that they share the same general legal counsel, F Antone Accuardi. Antone’s ***her, Fred Accuardi, is president of Telephone Management Corp. Well, it turns out that Fred Accuardi is affiliated with a company called International Telephone Corporation, which purports to be based in the country of Belize. This conclusion is based on the fact that someone published a comment on this blog under the name Fred Accuardi and listed [email protected] as his email address: Please set them straight Dad Fred Accuardi was an email follower of this blog basically since it s****ed, using the address ***elephonemanagement.net, but appears to have accidentally sent a public message from his International Telephone Corp. address. The instruction to “Please set them straight” appears to be directed at his son, attorney F Antone Accuardi. This comment certainly feels a bit menacing though, it doesn’t sound like he approves of the information published here – he certainly will not be pleased that information about his Belize connections have been made public. The website for International Telephone Corporation describes the services they provide: International Telephone Corporation is a worldwide leader in managed Caller ID services. ITC provides services for its customers spanning four continents and is a proven leader in the fast emerging hosted call center industry. Utilizing ITC’s Internet based customer interface, call center managers have sophisticated capabilities readily available to them from their laptop to handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns. After this article was first published, the web page was taken offline, but here is an arc***ed copy: There is also a prominent “do not call” disclaimer about “unwanted” calls, yet there is no clear way to actually contact this company or their compliance department: If you are a consumer and you have received an unwanted call from an ITC telephone number, please contact our compliance department and we will be happy to****ist you in being blocked from receiving future calls from that party. The website for International Telephone Corporation is 69.168.53.15, which is traced back to a hosting facility right here in Portland Oregon called Spire Tech. The web site for Telephone Management Corporation is also located at the same exact IP address in Oregon. International Telephone Corp. also has a site called Reports.Inttelephone.com located at that same IP address. The ***le of the page is “CNAM Reports” and it contains a login screen. There is also a separate domain name, www.revenue-reports.com, that points to this same web site: The “CNAM Reports” is likely a reference to a CNAM revenue sharing program that appears to involve generating and sharing revenue from the telephone calls that are made during unsolicited telemarketing campaigns. Telephone Management Corporation describes it this way: The web site also states that International Telephone Corp. is registered in the country of Belize. Even though the web site is located in Portland Oregon, the Belize connection could be significant for several reasons: International Telephone Corporation Uses Telephone Numbers Identified In Illegal Telemarketing Calls – In response to a subpoena from the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, Pacific Telecom identified International Telephone Corporation in Belize as the en***y who was using their phone numbers for illegal telemarketing calls. F Antone Accuardi Formerly Practiced Law From Belize – F Antone Accuardi marketed himself as the managing partner of Inter Law Group on the web site http://www.InterLawGroup.com. Here’s an excerpt of his biographical profile, where he also announces his affiliation with Telephone Management Corporation: … Mr. Accuardi engaged in complex commercial litigation before joining the consulting firm of TM Corp in Portland, Oregon as their general counsel and lead tax consultant. His duties aside from commercial litigation in Federal and state courts were in the areas of taxation research and the securing of substantial excise tax refunds for TMC’s mainly fortune 500 clientèle. … He is currently a founder of a the Interlaw Group and has been permanently residing in between the United States and Belize since 2001. http://web.arc***e.org/web/20080517021945/http://www.interlawgroup.com/about/ F Antone Accuardi’s web site describes some very interesting off s**** financial transaction services that are offered by his firm: As a client of Interlaw you will enjoy exclusive treatment, you won’t need to be sending your funds off to an account in the Cayman Islands or to Belize as other firms will have you do. You can send your funds directly to one of our attorney’s U.S. trust accounts, not only ensuring your funds are being allocated as per your wishes, but also ensuring the appearance of a very standard transaction, rather than one that authorities feel that they should scrutinize. http://web.arc***e.org/web/20041210210058/http://www.interlawgroup.com/ This line is a nice touch: “ensuring the appearance of a very standard transaction, rather than one that authorities feel that they should scrutinize.” Utilizing an attorney “IOLTA” trust account to disguise the transfer of funds to a foreign tax haven to help a client avoid complying with tax rules is simply not legal. In addition, the receipt of more than $10,000 in ***ulative funds from a single source into an IOLTA trust account should be reported to the IRS, according to section §6050I of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Here are the guidelines an IRS examiner would follow if they were to audit F Antone Accuardi’s attorney trust account : The examiner is responsible for supporting the goals of the BSA program: to identify, detect and deter money laundering whether it is in furtherance of a criminal enterprise, terrorism, tax evasion, or other unlawful activity. The examiner must be alert to efforts by customers or businesses to structure transactions to avoid the filing of Form 8300. 4.26.12.2 (06-01-2006) Attorney Overview 1. Attorneys have the****ential for receiving large amounts of cash for legal services or funds to be held in trust. 2. Attorneys usually generate fees based either on retainer or contingency. See Terminology for definitions and discussion. 3. In addition to general operating accounts, attorneys have trust or escrow accounts to hold funds in trust for their clients. Dollar amounts may be large and the****ential for cash transactions is high. 4. Attorney-client privilege is a legally recognized privilege that protects confidential communication between attorney and client. However, the iden***y of a client and the amount of cash paid by the client to the attorney is not generally considered privileged information under the attorney-client privilege. http://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-026-012.html Hiding in a Belize Tax Haven - The primary advantage of registering a company in Belize is the special International Business Company designation, which essentially allows foreigners who don’t plan to actually conduct business in Belize to set up a legal en***y. Here are some key summary points about the IBC, as marketed by a company that sells services to set up a Belize tax haven: * Can be formed in a matter of hours. * Do not pay any taxes to the country of Belize. * No requirements to file annual reports or any other report with the Belize government. * No one will know how much $$ you have hidden in Belize: “Belize does not disclose its banking or fiscal information under any information-exc****e agreements to any foreign parties on grounds of suspected tax evasion.” * No one will even know who owns the IBC: “The only do***ents of a Belize IBC held on public record are the Memorandum and the Articles of****ociation. These do***ents do not contain any indication as to the actual beneficial owners, directors or controllers of the company.” * Foreign governments are prohibited from seizing any****ets of an IBC, regardless of any legal judgement. F Antone Accuardi may present himself as some sort of tax law genius, but The New York Times recently published an article about how incredibly simple it is for an individual to set up a tax shelter in Belize: Setting up the company was a lot cheaper than I expected. A&P charged $900 for a basic Belizean incorporation and another $85 for a corporate seal to emboss legal do***ents. For $650 more, A&P offered to open a bank account to stash my fledgling operation’s money in Singapore — a country, the Web site also noted, that “cannot gather information on foreigners’ bank accounts, bank-deposit interest and investment ***ns under domestic tax law.” And for another $690, it offered to****ign a “nominee” who would be listed as the official manager and owner of my business but would report to me under a secret power-o****torney contract. Then an A&P****ociate asked me to fill out the incorporation information online, just so she wouldn’t type in anything incorrectly. The whole thing took about 10 minutes. … In order to investigate my Belizean company’s bank account in Singapore, for instance, the I.R.S. would need to identify my bank and bank-account number, prove I had broken the law and then pe***ion judges in Belize and Singapore to issue court orders forcing the release of my information. It’s a nearly impossible standard. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/my-big-***-belizean-singaporean-bank-account.html What can be done to stop this telemarketing if Pacific Telecom and F Antone Accuardi shelter their activities behind a Belize shell company? * Report Pacific Telecom’s activities to State and Federal regulators. Enforce regulatory rules to prevent Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and other principles in this scheme from ever operating a public telecommunications utility. * Report Tax Fraud to the IRS – Pacific Telecom is required to file annual reports to Utility regulators in several States. Some reports show zero revenue, while others show tiny amounts. If the income of Pacific Telecom and the Accuardi family is not being reported properly or is being hidden in Belize, the IRS has a form to report this here: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=106778,00.html and they even offer a Whistle****er reward. * Legal Action – The U.S. Department of Justice and State Attorney Generals should take prompt legal action to stop any unlawful activity that may be occurring. * Criminal Charges – If any conspi**** to facilitate telemarketing fraud and hide the****ets exists, there could be criminal penalties that will be applicable. Frankly, this is perhaps the only way to truly stop telemarketing****ociated with these individuals. To recap, this new information about a possible Accuardi telecom business based in Belize could be totally unrelated to the unsolicited telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Another possibility is that this is the “smoking gun” that reveals insights into how Pacific Telecom’s services can be sold to telemarketers through the secrecy of a foreign shell company. Once a***n, we have no specific knowledge of a conspi**** (criminal or otherwise), but theorize that it’s possible a scheme could operate so****ing like this: Pacific Telecom Communications Group - Registers as a Public Utility in several States, obtains blocks of telephone numbers. Operated by Steve Hamilton, with support from F Antone Accuardi. International Telephone Corporation – A 3rd party legal en***y, registered in Belize, who according to a subpoena, utilizes Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers identified in illegal telemarketing calls. Technology infrastructure is based in Portland Oregon and hosted by a company called www.spiretech.com. Appears to be a shell company for Fred and F Antone Accuardi. Unknown Telemarketers - Purchase International Telephone Corporation’s web based call center services that allow them to “handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns” from a laptop. Our guess is that the individuals who use these services for illegal purposes are based in the United States. Please evaluate this information from a skeptical viewpoint and carefully draw your own conclusions. Leave a Comment Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group · 8:21 pm Pacific Telecom and Inbound Telemarketing According to the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, a Telemarketer is defined as: (cc) Telemarketer means any person who, in connection with telemarketing, initiates or receives telephone calls to or from a customer or donor. Lately, there have been reports of unsolicited telemarketing calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers that involve adverti*****ts for web sites. It is interesting to note that at least one of these adverti*****ts can be heard when a consumer dials back the phone number seen in their CallerID. For instance, there have been many complaints about telemarketing involving 503-457-1283, which is one of Pacific Telecom’s Oregon phone numbers. As of August 17th, 2012, when I call this number I hear the following recorded message: *****o, we are looking for people in your area who are interested in earning cash for taking short surveys and playing games online. If you’d be interested, please visit our web site at www. SurveyFromPhone.com for more information. It’s free to sign up, there are no strings attached, just simple surveys and games that earn you cash every day. If you need to hear our domain a***n, SurveyFromPhone.com, just call us back on the number that showed up on your caller ID. Once a***n, that’s SurveyFromPhone.com. S-u-r-v-e-y-F-r-o-m-P-h-o-n-e-.-com. Thanks and have a blessed day. To be removed from this list, you can also press 9 now. (Click Here to Listen to Actual Recording, recorded on 08-14-2012 From 503-457-1283) This telemarketing pitch may use the term “survey,” but it certainly does not seem to fall under any exemption from the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. In fact, this appears to be an abusive telemarketing practice because it’s asking a consumer to engage in playing games for the chance to obtain some ***ue cash payout, which seems to fit the definition of a “prize promotion“: (y) Prize means anything offered, or purportedly offered, and given, or purportedly given, to a person by chance. For purposes

The Telecom Compliance News Press Skip to content ← Older posts May 20, 2012 · 8:39 pm Attention… This web site is a journalistic endeavor for The Telecom Compliance News Press and is published to provide consumers with news and commentary regarding the telemarketing industry. Every effort is made to ensure the accu**** of the information presented here and all statements are made in good faith with the belief that they are correct. To contact an editor regarding any comments or factual corrections, simply add a comment on the news article in question. If you’ve received an unsolicited telemarketing call from Rachel at “Cardholder Services”, Tom with “Home Security”, or other robocall originating from a phone number listed below, it likely came from a telemarketer that has entered into a revenue sharing agreement with a public utility named Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Pacific Telecom is involved in a scheme whereby they profit from the millions of seemingly illegal unsolicited telemarketing sales calls made each week that are identified with their phone numbers, all in apparent violation of 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. Pacific Telecom has a foreign “subsidiary” registered in Belize, which seemingly acts as a “shell” company to hide the iden***y of the individuals who initiate these outbound telemarketing calls and makes it difficult for regulators to investigate this activity. Our ****ysis of FTC consumer complaint data shows that Pacific Telecom phone numbers are the target of over 25% of consumer telemarketing complaints to the FTC. A staggering 208,362 complaints were filed with the FTC a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers over a recent 3 month period alone. The mastermind behind these schemes appears to be an attorney in Portland Oregon named F Antone Accuardi. Although multiple State and Federal investigations are under way, so far Accuardi has not been brought to justice. PLEASE take 10 minutes of your time to submit an online complaint to State and Federal regulators so we can put an end to the damage that is being inflicted on the public. In order to identify the State regulator who needs to hear your complaint, click on the phone number prefix below that matches the number that you see on your caller ID: Phone Number State Rate Center 206-496-0**x WA SEATTLE 253-246-8**x WA KENT 253-382-9**x WA TACOMA 360-328-8**x WA SILVERDALE 360-474-3**x WA MARYSVILLE 360-529-6**x WA OLYMPIA 425-390-8**x WA RENTON 425-658-8**x WA KIR****D 425-953-8**x WA EVERETT 503-457-1**x OR TILLAMOOK 503-468-5**x OR ASTORIA 503-563-0**x OR STFRD-SNDY 503-592-2**x OR CANBYNEEDY 503-770-2**x OR CHARBONNEU 503-773-0**x OR NORTH PL 503-837-2**x OR DALLAS 503-850-0**x OR CLACKAMAS 503-898-8**x OR REDLAND 503-902-8**x OR WOODBURN 971-208-9**x OR SALEM 971-213-1**x OR SHERWOOD 971-217-9**x OR ******TON 971-220-1**x OR GRESHAM 971-248-8**x OR VERNONIA 971-259-6**x OR AMITY 971-277-8**x OR PORTLAND 971-333-8**x OR HOOD LAND 971-343-1**x OR SILVERTON 971-373-0**x OR PORTLAND 971-373-1**x OR PORTLAND 971-373-2**x OR PORTLAND 406-219-2**x MT BOZEMAN 406-224-9**x MT LIVINGSTON 406-290-3**x MT COLUMBUS 406-290-8**x MT COLUMBUS 406-351-4**x MT FORSYTH 406-426-3**x MT RED LODGE 406-478-2**x MT SIDNEY 406-478-7**x MT SIDNEY 406-530-5**x MT LAUREL 406-548-9**x MT BOZEMAN 406-623-2**x MT HARDIN 406-623-3**x MT HARDIN 406-640-8**x MT WYELLOWSTN 406-715-0**x MT BILLINGS 406-715-1**x MT BILLINGS 406-720-2**x MT COL***** 406-852-8**x MT MILES CITY 406-931-3**x MT BIG TIMBER 406-942-5**x MT GLASGOW 406-948-6**x MT GLENDIVE 406-948-8**x MT GLENDIVE 701-217-1**x ND SPENCER 701-264-5**x ND ****INSON 701-264-6**x ND ****INSON 701-301-4**x ND CENTER 701-******** ND MINOT 701-509-8**x ND MINOT 701-625-2**x ND MARTIN 701-625-5**x ND MARTIN 701-661-1**x ND EMMET 701-661-3**x ND EMMET 701-712-0**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-1**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-2**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-3**x ND BISMARCK 701-712-4**x ND BISMARCK 701-920-9**x ND CENTER 701-923-1**x ND SPENCER 20 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group May 19, 2012 · 7:58 pm About Pacific Telecom Communications Group Pacific Telecom Communications Group is a company operated by F Antone Accuardi, along with Steve Hamilton (aka Florin Florica) who acts as a “front” man in regulatory filings. It is registered as a public utility in the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana and North Dakota. They are registered as a Compe***ive Local Exc****e Carrier, which enables them to obtain blocks of telephone numbers. They currently hold 69,000 telephone numbers in area codes across those 4 states – these numbers are listed on this site. (On August 3rd, 2012, Pacific Telecom’s certificate was canceled in Oregon due to violations of utility rules.) However, Pacific Telecom does not operate as a typical telephone company. Based on discussions with Pacific Telecom, our understanding is that their services are solely used in connection with unsolicited telemarketing calls. Those 69,000 telephone numbers are only used for telemarketing purposes. The high volume telemarketing campaigns****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers comprise a wide range of dubious pitches, including “lower your credit card interest rate” ploys, “home protection” schemes, and “free cruise” offers. These unsolicited telemarketing campaigns do not comply with Federal or State telemarketing laws. Calls are made to phone numbers listed on the Federal Government’s “Do Not Call” registry. Spreading out these telemarketing campaigns across many telephone numbers helps to reduce the volume of complaints****ociated with any specific telephone number. It’s much easier to get away with a million unsolicited telemarketing calls distributed across 1,000 numbers instead of having all of the complaints a***nst a single phone number. According to our ****ysis, 25% of all consumer telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC in a recent 3 month period were made a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers. Over 200,000 complaints were filed a***nst them during that brief time period alone. The outbound telemarketing calls do not travel across Pacific Telecom’s network. Instead, these calls are likely transmitted from data centers outside of the United States through a process called “predictive dialing.” Many numbers are dialed, but only a subset of calls are picked up by a human – when a live telemarketing victim does answer the phone, the call is routed back to a call center in the United States. Another approach involves playing a recorded marketing pitch that instructs the consumer to “press 1″ to speak to a sales representative. So, if you’re going to break the law anyway, why bother transmitting your real telephone number in the Caller ID? As you’ll see below, the answer is because that’s where the profits come from. Directly Profiting from Unsolicited Telemarketing? Pacific Telecom’s telephone numbers are Calling Name (CNAM) provisioned and stored in a special database accessible to other telecom utilities. This means that for any outbound call that transmits a special “ANI” code corresponding to one of their phone numbers, Pacific Telecom can collect a fee for transmitting the caller ID information to the Local Exc****e Carrier receiving the call. When you see a Pacific Telecom phone number in your caller ID (along with some name like “card services”), your phone company has to reimburse Pacific Telecom for downloading that info from the database where it’s stored. CNAM fees are typically fractions of a cent per call. When these fees are aggregated across tens of millions of outbound calls per week, it amounts to significant money. Huge volumes of unsolicited telemarketing calls can drive significant revenue into the pockets of Pacific Telecom and their affiliates. Here are several marketing slides published by Fred Accuardi, who is an apparent partner in this scheme with Pacific Telecom: Revenue Sharing _01 Revenue Sharing _02 Revenue Sharing _03 Revenue Sharing _04 Revenue Sharing _05 Revenue Sharing _06 Revenue Sharing _07 Revenue Sharing _08 In addition, here is the language that the VP of Fred Accuardi’s firm uses to describe their services: TMC is a 37 year old telecommunications consulting firm. We provide revenue $$, ani codes and a easy portal for on the fly caller id name c****e to out bound call centers. We also provide revenue$$ for any and all call backs generated from those calls. If you are a call center and you are not currently getting paid on out bound calls to the US, you are leaving money on the table. Telemarketing appears to run in the family – Fred Accuardi is not only the ***her of Pacific Telecom attorney F Antone Accuardi, but a host of other Accuardi family members are also involved. Hiding Activity Behind A Belize “Shell” Company Pacific Telecom hides behind its public utility status to claim that it’s an innocent victim of folks who misuse it’s services. Steve Hamilton and attorney F Antone Accuardi direct all blame for millions of unlawful telemarketing calls a***nst it’s “subscribers.” However, it appears that right now Pacific Telecom may only have a single subscriber, who not coincidentally is closely affiliated with them and even apparently shares one or more of the same personnel. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom names International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers used for illegal telemarketing. Not surprisingly, International Telephone Corporation appears to be operated by none other than Fred Accuardi out of his Portland Oregon office. In fact, Accuardi keeps the web site for this Belize company on the same web server as his Telephone Management Corp, where those marketing slides above were published. Furthermore, Fred Accuardi’s son, F Antone Accuardi, portrays himself as an employee of both Pacific Telecom and Fred Accuardi’s operation. Fred Accuardi’s role in this scheme appears to be as the one who actively recruits telemarketers to place ***dreds of thousands of calls identified with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. In addition, Accuardi also appears to be the party who collects the CNAM fees owed from other telephone companies, then distributes this revenue to the other individuals involved in this scheme. All of these details were unveiled in litigation relating to a previous incarnation of this scheme that involved the same players: Steve Hamilton, Fred Accuardi and F Antone Accuardi. Pacific Telecom’s Defense A***nst Allegations of Illegal Telemarketing So how is Pacific Telecom able to be involved in this reprehensible and unlawful conduct without the FTC shutting them down? Well, they simply use “ignorance” as their main defense. Pacific Telecom suggests that there is an “arms length” distance between them and the individuals committing the crimes, so they are absolved of any liability. However, there seems to be ample evidence that shows this is not true, as the veil has been lifted on the Belize “shell” company. Hypothetically, even if Pacific Telecom somehow is not aware of the illicit activity that’s occurring, their willful ignorance of this illegal telemarketing scheme violates 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule: ****isting and facilitating . It is a deceptive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a person to provide substantial****istance or support to any seller or telemarketer when that person knows or consciously avoids knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in any act or practice that violates §§310.3(a), (c) or (d), or §310.4 of this Rule. Can Anyone Stop Pacific Telecom Communications Group? Pacific Telecom seems to believe that they found the “magic formula” that allows them to profit (directly or indirectly) from unlawful telemarketing without violating the Telecommunications Protection Act or the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. So far they’ve managed to fly under the radar of the understaffed and under funded FTC. In order to put an end to these practices, it’s important to voice your complaints not only to the FTC, but directly to the Public Utilities Commissions in the states where Pacific Telecom operates as a telecom utility. These Commissions have a mandate to regulate utilities for the good of the public. However, Public Utility Commissions are notorious for being “cozy” with the companies that they are charged with regulating. Don’t expect them to create or enforce rules unless there is a loud and sustained effort. If you have taken the time to read this far down in this blog post, then I bet you are tired of getting telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Please take a moment to fill out an online complaint form to share your feelings with these regulatory agencies: Online Complaint to the FTC Federal Do Not Call Complaint Form: https://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx?panel=2 Oregon State Bar****ociation Complaints regarding Pacific Telecom’s leader and licensed attorney F Antone Accuardi can be sent to: [email protected] FBI F Antone Accuardi is alleged to launder money from Pacific Telecom through his attorney trust bank account in Oregon and into foreign accounts at Scotiabank in Belize and other destinations. Any criminal activity can be reported to the FBI here: https://tips.fbi.gov/ Online Complaints to the State of Oregon Oregon Public Utilities Commission Online Complaints: http://apps.puc.state.or.us/consumer/complaint.asp Oregon Attorney General’s Office Online Complaints: https://www.doj.state.or.us/consumer/complaint.shtml Oregon Governor’s Office Online Complaints: http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/contact.shtml Online Complaints to the State of Washington Washington Attorney General Online Complaints: https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/ComplaintForm.aspx Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission Online Complaints: http://www.utc.wa.gov/consumers/Pages/ConsumerComplaintForm.aspx Online Complaints to the State of North Dakota North Dakota Attorney General Online Complaints: http://www.ag.nd.gov/ConsumerProtection/ConsumerProtection/ConsumerComplaint North Dakota Public Service Commission: Informal Complaints filed by calling: 701-328-2400, formal complaints can be submitted in writing by emailing [email protected] Online Complaints to the State of Montana Montana Attorney General Online Complaints: https://app.doj.mt.gov/apps/Oscar/default.aspx Montana Public Service Commission Online Complaints: http://psc.mt.gov/consumers/complaints/ 19 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group December 12, 2012 · 11:31 pm FTC Receives Nearly One Million Telemarketing Complaints Involving F Antone Accuardi During the period of January 1, 2011 to October 22, 2012, the FTC received 982,999 consumer complaints a***nst telephone numbers belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. These complaints represented up to 32% of all monthly telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC during this period. The complaints peaked at at total of 97,950 in June 2012. FTC Complaints A***nst Pacific Telecom - jan 2011 - october 2012 These complaints were filed by consumers who registered their home telephone numbers on the Federal Do Not Call registry. The largest category of complaints consisted of reports of “robo calls” regarding “card services” and other credit card related schemes. The second highest category of complaints involved “home security” robo calls. Overall, these calls suggest a pattern of outright illegal activity that in many cases represent efforts to financially defraud consumers. Federal law states that businesses engaging in illegal automated telemarketing calls to phone numbers on the Do Not Call registry are strictly liable for damages of $500 per violation. The complaints directed a***nst Pacific Telecom represent damages of nearly $500 million. As we previously reported, the North Dakota Attorney General’s office found that Pacific Telecom Communications Group is operated by Oregon attorney F Antone Accuardi. Accuardi set up a “shell” company registered in the country of ***zil, which appears to be an effort to disguise his involvement in illegal telemarketing activity. Accuardi’s efforts to set up “shell” companies to hide illicit telemarketing activity may in fact expose him to personable liability for the damages caused to consumers. Accuardi and his ***her Fred, who is also involved in these telemarketing schemes, own a variety of****ets in the Oregon area, in addition to funds suspected to be held in offs**** bank accounts. 1 Comment Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group October 22, 2012 · 10:18 pm North Dakota Attorney General Targets Pacific Telecom and F Antone Accuardi for Violations On October 3, 2012, an investigator with the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office signed an affidavit detailing violations of North Dakota State law by Pacific Telecom Communications Group, Steve Hamilton, and F Antone Accuardi. The affidavit can be viewed here. The Attorney General’s office describes conduct that suggests a willful and blatant disregard for State and Federal law: * Pacific Telecom “repeatedly failed” to fully cooperate with subpoenas issued by the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office. * Pacific Telecom was notified of the illegal activities****ociated with their services as far back as Feburary 3, 2011, yet has failed to halt this activity in any meaningful way. Their facilitation of this activity cons***utes a violation of N.D.C.C. § 51-15-02.3. * Pacific Telecom owner Steve Hamilton falsely claimed to the Attorney General’s Office that he “terminated his contracts” with illegal telemarketers, when in fact his affiliation with illegal telemarketing continued uninterrupted. * Oregon attorney F Antone Accuardi “is responsible for a large percentage of the illegal telephone calls made using Pacific Telecom’s telephone numbers.” This affidavit also indicates that Pacific Telecom is now operated by F Antone Accuardi. We previously detailed Accuardi’s role in leading the Belize “shell” company that Pacific Telecom uses to engage in revenue sharing agreements with telemarketers who engage in illegal telemarketing. The mounting evidence of F Antone Accuardi’s active involvement in this scheme to profit from illegal telemarketing is of particular significance: as a licensed member of the Oregon State Bar, this conduct represents a serious violation of the rules of professional conduct. The specific rules were reviewed in a previous article So far, no sanctions have been issued a***nst Mr. Accuardi. However, the Oregon State Bar****ociation collects reports of professional conduct violations via information emailed to [email protected]. Although no official complaint form is necessary, they offer a form to help facilitate complaints. Any reports of professional misconduct involving F Antone Accuardi should include factual information relating to his activities, such as the affidavit from the investigator with the North Dakota Attorney General’s office. F Anthony Antone Accuardi Bar Number 974613 Status Active Member Admit Date 9/22/1997 Mailing Address F Anthony Antone Accuardi 64783 E Lupine Dr Rhododendron OR 97049 County Clackamas Phone 971 404-4185 Fax Email [email protected] Website www.barefootinvestments.com Disciplinary History Date Sanctions Details Source No Disciplinary Sanctions for this Member http://www.osbar.org/members/display.asp?b=974613 3 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group October 8, 2012 · 11:46 pm ** Pacific Telecom’s “Robo-Call” Revenue Sharing Scheme Revealed ** Millions of illegal unsolicited telemarketing calls are made each week by individuals who utilize phone numbers belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Recently, a sales broker for Pacific Telecom’s services shed some light on how they created a “subsidiary” based in the country of Belize to apparently shield the iden***y of Pacific Telecom and protect Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and Fred Accuardi from legal liability, while at the same time allowing them to profit from seemingly illegal telemarketing calls. Additionally, this sales representative for Pacific Telecom actually provided evidence of his own activities initiating outbound “robo-calls” using Pacific Telecom’s services. Partnering with High Volume Telemarketers Joseph Sanchez operates a web site called DollarDials.com, where he markets Pacific Telecom’s revenue sharing service for telemarketers. His web site describes it this way: If you are a high volume SIP customer with at over 300,000 calls per month terminating in the United States, then we can get YOU compensated for the traffic you create. Federal Communications rules prohibit telemarketers from blocking Caller ID information and require them to pass accurate caller ID numbers. After signing up, you get access to our Caller ID management portal that will allow you to stay in compliance with these FCC regulations while optimizing your campaigns. The irony is that Mr. Sanchez attempts to position this revenue sharing scheme as a way to comply with FCC rules, when in fact it is clear that these services are used by unscrupulous telemarketers who are in direct violation of FCC and FTC rules. Profiting From Illegal Telemarketing Calls When a telemarketer signs up for this revenue sharing scheme, they don’t contract directly with Pacific Telecom, but rather with a company registered in the country of Belize named International Telephone Corporation. In an email, Mr. Sanchez describes this en***y as “a subsidiary of the phone company and setup for protection of the investors.” He specifically states in his email that “You are contracting direct with phone carrier.” The “phone carrier” referred to here is Pacific Telecom Communications Group. Mr. Sanchez says that International Telephone Corporation will pay telemarketers $.00075 per outbound call where the Caller ID data is successfully transmitted. In telecom jargon, these are called “dips” into a caller ID database. The telephone company for the consumer who receives the unsolicited telemarketing call must pay Pacific Telecom for the right to “dip” into the caller ID database in order to retrieve the “calling name” information that’s displayed on the phone. Incidentally, the rate of $.00075 per outbound call appears to be a small fraction of the “dip” fee, suggesting that Pacific Telecom actually reaps most of the profits when an unsolicited call is made. Mr. Sanchez is well versed in this scheme and summarizes it in an email below. The “ANI” acronym seen in the message is simply a reference to Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Attached are two do***ents that we need signed, scanned and emailed by back. Also the rate you receive is .00075 per dip. On 5 million dips, you would receive a check or direct wire to your account of $3750.00. After we receive the do***ents back, your online account is created where you can log in, access your anis, manipulate your caller i.d. display, and view reports such as dips by ANI, Dips by Carrier, Dips by Date, dips by month all in the form of last month, month to date or year to date. A***n we are not middle men but rather sales****ociates representing the phone carrier, all payments, reporting and online accounting is conducted by them. You are contracting direct with phone carrier and that’s a good thing!! Any questions please call me direct at 815-553-2683. Joseph Sanchez DollarDials.com a division of Virtual Marketing Consultants, Inc. Direct: 815-553-2683 In a phone conversation, Mr. Sanchez emphasized that proceeds from this scheme are provided in the form of a check or a wire transfer from International Telephone Corporation, which helps to conceal the involvement of Pacific Telecom. When asked if a telemarketer’s iden***y will be revealed if Pacific Telecom is forced to turn over subscriber information, Mr. Sanchez writes that “… due to the setup of the company we are all protected.“ This is a clear indication that this Belize “subsidiary” is in place to prevent consumers or Law Enforcement from learning the true iden***y of the individuals****ociated with illegal telemarketing calls involving Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. In fact, when the Tennessee Regulatory Authority sent a series of subpoenas to Pacific Telecom in an effort to learn the iden***y of the subscribers making illegal telemarketing calls, Pacific Telecom simply provided the name of International Telephone Corporation. The use of this anonymous foreign corporation effectively blocked the TRA’s investigation into these telemarketing calls. The intent behind Pacific Telecom’s creation of International Telephone Corporation is critical, because creating a “shell” company for the purpose of evading criminal and civil legal liability can in some cir***stances “lift the corporate veil” and expose company officers to direct legal liability. A review of International Telephone Corporation’s customer contract reveals that they are executed by none other than F Antone Accuardi, who represents himself as “Vice President & General Counsel.” It’s no coincidence that in communications with regulators and law enforcement agencies, F Antone Accuardi represents himself as General Counsel for Pacific Telecom. ITC CNAM (NR) Service Order Acknowledgement ITC CNAM CABS (NR) Addendum We obtained this contract in October 2012 from Mr. Sanchez. The last contract revision is dated August 2011, indicating that this latest scheme has been taking place for over a year. Direct Knowledge of Illegal Activity? A review of the agreement between International Telephone Corporation and telemarketers shows that it’s the customer’s responsibility to comply with state and federal law: Customer agrees to comply with all applicable local, state and federal rules and laws when using INTLTEL Services, including, but not limited to, those rules and laws which may pertain to consumer fraud, obscenity, telemarketing and/or “no call” lists (e.g., Part 310 of the FTC’s rules and Part 64 of the FCC’s rules). Likewise, Customer warrants that it has obtained all government approvals, licenses, authorizations, consents or permits necessary to provide the services for which Customer will use INTLTEL’s****igned numbers. Customer agrees to indemnify and hold INTLTEL, its local providers and its database providers harmless from any of Customer’s actions, or actions of Customer’s employees, agents, subcontractors and authorized users, which are not in compliance with any such, rules, laws, regulations or requirements. While this language may sound impressive, there is abundant evidence that this provision is simply not enforced in any meaningful way. In our previous ****ysis of FTC consumer complaints, we established that over 200,000 complaints were filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers over a 3 month period alone. (A larger effort is currently underway to ****yze FTC consumer complaints going back to 2011.) Mr. Sanchez describes how Pacific Telecom actually tracks the number of consumer complaints directed at their phone numbers: … each client receives daily DNC opt-out lists each morning that must be uploaded to your master dnc accounts. They are generated by people who call back the phone number that appears on their caller i.d. Those that do are told they received a marketing message if you want to opt out press 1. He provided screen captures of his own web based account with Pacific Telecom’s International Telephone site that show the full range of reporting available to Pacific Telecom and their telemarketers: Note that it appears that Pacific Telecom and their customers have the full ability to view complaints reported to them by consumers calling back Pacific Telecom phone numbers. It’s important to stress that using an automated dialer to initiate unsolicited telemarketing sales calls to consumers on the Federal Do Not Call list is illegal with few exceptions, regardless of any “opt out” system that’s in place. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Pacific Telecom and their affiliates are fully aware of consumer complaints, yet apparently fail to honor these “opt out” requests anyway. Consumers who dial Pacific Telecom phone numbers and request to be put on their “Do Not Call” list continue to receive these illegal calls. F Antone Accuardi has personally received complaints about illegal telemarketing involving specific Pacific Telecom phone numbers. When those phone numbers are compared a***nst FTC consumer complaint data, we see that huge volumes of complaints continued a***nst those phone numbers, suggesting that Mr. Accuardi took absolutely no action to halt this illegal activity. What’s particularity appalling is that F Antone Accuardi has represented in statements to the Oregon Department of Justice that he doesn’t know the iden***y of the en***ies behind the illegal telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom phone numbers. However, not only is Mr. Accuardi “Vice President” of Pacific Telecom’s foreign subsidiary that provides the revenue sharing program, but it appears that he personally signs the agreements with the telemarketers. Pacific Telecom Representative Initiating Illegal Telemarketing Calls Joseph Sanchez Mr. Sanchez states that he is an “associate representing the phone carrier.” It is also clear that he benefits from Pacific Telecom’s revenue sharing scheme through his own telemarketing activities that he advertises on another web site, VoiceLeads.us: Direct Live Transfers … Field phone calls from people that pressed “1″ wanting to speak with you anywhere, anytime. Field live calls in your home, office or call center. Clients like this lead because they speak to the prospect live after they opted in by pressing the one key. Talk to prospects while they are in the “mood,” live. This lead is great for selling over the phone or setting appointments as well! These “direct live transfers” occur when a consumer receives an unsolicited “robo call” with an automated marketing message that instructs them to “press 1″ to speak with a live agent. Mr. Sanchez provided screen ****s of his own revenue sharing account with Pacific Telecom. These screen****s reveal just a few of the telephone numbers and caller ID name he utilizes in his outbound unsolicited calling campaigns: Mr. Sanchez shared during a phone conversation that he conducts “robo calling” to pitch various “insurance” products. In an email followup to that call, he stated the following: I use live telemarketers on a predicative system that cold calls business prospects. When the prospect answers my telemarketers conduct a survey. Telemarketing complaint site 800Notes.com confirms this through countless consumer complaints a***nst the Pacific Telecom phone numbers shown in Mr. Sanchez’s account in the above screen ****. One consumer describes these calls succinctly: Recorded Ad for “Life Insurance” – NO company name or other ID mentioned. http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-425-390-8956 Conclusion Just to recap, here is what we have learned: * Pacific Telecom Communications Group has a “subsidiary” in Belize named International Telephone Corporation. * Pacific Telecom, via it’s International Telephone Corporation subsidiary, provides a “revenue sharing” program whereby they profit from unsolicited telemarketing calls. * F Antone Accuardi signs the contracts with Telemarketers and represents himself as “Vice President & General Counsel.” * These Telemarketers make literally millions of illegal unsolicited “robo-calls” utilizing Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers, which earn revenue for both the telemarketer and Pacific Telecom. * A sales****ociate for Pacific Telecom appears to personally engage in initiating “robo-calls” using Pacific Telecom phone numbers. These facts are a clear indication that Pacific Telecom and its leaders Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and Fred Accuardi are likely in violation of a number of laws, including 16 C.F.R. §310.3(b) of the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, which states: ****isting and facilitating . It is a deceptive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a person to provide substantial****istance or support to any seller or telemarketer when that person knows or consciously avoids knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in any act or practice that violates §§310.3(a), (c) or (d), or §310.4 of this Rule. The FTC publishes a guide to help businesses comply with the Telemarketing Sales Rule. This is what they have to say about the “Assisting and Facilitating” rule: ****isting and Facilitating Sellers or Telemarketers Who Violate the Rule is Prohibited It is a violation of the Rule to substantially****ist a seller or telemarketer while knowing — or consciously avoiding knowing — that the seller or telemarketer is violating the Rule. Thus taking deliberate steps to ensure one’s own ignorance of a seller or telemarketer’s Rule violations is an ineffective strategy to avoid liability. The help that a third-party provides must be more than casual or incidental dealing with a seller or telemarketer that is not related to a violation of the Rule. For example, cleaning a telemarketer’s office, delivering lunches to the telemarketer’s premises, or engaging in some other activity with little or no relation to the conduct that violates the Rule would not be enough to support liability as an****istor or facilitator. Third parties who do business with sellers and telemarketers should be aware that their dealings may provide a factual basis to support an inference that they know — or deliberately remain ignorant of — the Rule violations of these sellers and telemarketers. For example, a third party who provides sellers or telemarketers with mailing lists, help in creating sales scripts or direct mail pieces, or any other substantial****istance while knowing or deliberately avoiding knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in a Rule violation may be violating the Rule. http://business.ftc.gov/do***ents/bus27-complying-telemarketing-sales-rule#assisting So far, regulators and law enforcement have not taken decisive action to bring Pacific Telecom and its leaders to justice. The torrent of unsolicited telemarketing calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers will not stop until consumers successfully make this issue a priority with the State and Federal agencies who are charged with enforcing the laws that Pacific Telecom is accused of breaking 3 Comments Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Joseph Sanchez, Pacific Telecom Communications Group · 2:26 am Pacific Telecom Faces Loss of North Dakota Utility Status On October 1st, 2012, the North Dakota Public Services Commission filed a formal complaint a***nst Pacific Telecom Communications Group, available here. This complaint sites a wide range of serious violations, including: * Pacific Telecom failed to provide required evidence of their authority to conduct business in North Dakota, despite their acquisition of North Dakota telephone numbers and an agreement to provide local exc****e service in North Dakota. * Failure to notify the North Dakota Public Services Commission as required regarding their revocation of their utility status Oregon. The Public Services Commission underscored their concern of Pacific Telecom’s conduct by specifically requesting that their public utility registration be revoked, in addition to any further “just and proper” relief that is warranted given these cir***stances. Pacific Telecom has a period of 20 days to respond to this complaint before the Public Services Commission convenes a formal hearing where their utility registration can be officially revoked. Leave a Comment Filed under F Antone Accuardi, Pacific Telecom Communications Group September 11, 2012 · 5:18 am 25% of Consumer Complaints to the FTC Target Pacific Telecom Communications Group Consumers submitted 208,362 complaints to the FTC regarding unsolicited telephone calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers between the dates of between June 2012 and August 24, 2012. Over 25% of all complaints submitted to the FTC during this period were filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers. These statistics were calculated from data received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the FTC. The FTC provided an electronic copy of all consumer complaints submitted via the www.DoNotCall.gov website between the dates of June 2012 and August 24, 2012. These statistics convey the magnitude of the damages being inflicted on the public by Steve Hamilton of Pacific Telecom and his affiliate Fred Accuardi. Thousands of Complaints Per Day A***nst Pacific Telecom Here’s a chart that demonstrates the thousands of consumer complaints filed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers on a daily basis. Overall, the huge magnitude of illegal calls seems to be holding steady over time: Total Complaints A***nst Pacific Telecom vs. All Other Unsolicited Callers This next chart shows that out of a total of 815,872 consumer telemarketing complaints submitted to the FTC during this time frame, over 25% of them are directed a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers: Total Complaints A***nst Top 10 Unsolicited Callers This chart il****rates the sheer magnitude of complaints a***nst Pacific Telecom in relation to the next highest complaint targets: Pacific Telecom Phone Numbers with Top 20 Highest Complaint Totals During the June to August time frame ****yzed here, consumers submitted complaints to the FTC a***nst 1,550 unique Pacific Telecom phone numbers. This confirms their apparent strategy to spread out the complaint volume across a wide range of phone numbers. Here is a chart that shows the top 20 Pacific Telecom phone numbers with the highest complaint totals: Conclusions The sheer volume of complaints a***nst Pacific Telecom is simply enormous. For each consumer complaint submitted to the FTC a***nst Pacific Telecom phone numbers, there are likely thousands of other consumers that did not file a complaint, meaning that literally 10′s of millions of unsolicited telephone calls are being placed each week. The only reasonable conclusion is that Pacific Telecom is either actively involved in****isting these telemarketers or is willfully ignorant of the fact that their services are being used exclusively for illegal purposes. 3 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 30, 2012 · 1:23 am Fred Accuardi and Illegal Telemarketing Fred Accuardi is the president of Telephone Management Corporation, which operates out of an office here in Portland, Oregon. It appears that Fred and his crew have been accused of being involved in illicit telemarketing schemes going back to 2006 and perhaps earlier. Fred Accuardi is currently alleged to profit from illegal telemarketing through a shell company registered in Belize named International Telephone Corporation. This company operates with direct support from Pacific Telecom Communications Group. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom names International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers used for illegal telemarketing. Fred Accuardi seems to have accidentally revealed his****ociation with International Telephone Corp last week. Here’s what is needed to make this scheme work: Public Telecom Utility – Owns the CNAM provisioned phone numbers. Deflects complaints a***nst their “subscribers” illegal use of their telephone numbers. They can accurately claim that no outbound telemarketing calls are made from their network and are willfully ignorant of the illegal activity they support. Fee Collector – Fred Accuardi and Company – Telecom utilities are obligated to pay a tiny fee when they retrieve the Caller ID information from an incoming call. Fred Accuardi’s firm collects these fees that result when millions of telemarketing calls are made each week. This revenue is shared with the telemarketer who is doing the illegal calling. Telemarketer – Initiate millions of illegal telemarketing calls per week to phone customers who subscribe to Caller ID. They simply have to identify their calls with the public utility’s CNAM provisioned numbers to enable Fred Accuardi to collect the CNAM fees. The telemarketer****umes the most risk in this scheme: they are the easiest to prosecute for this activity and it’s not uncommon for the FTC to take legal action a***nst them. However, there are always plenty of telemarketers willing to take a chance to make quick money. Fred Accuardi’s****ociation with this type of unlawful telemarketing is nothing new. In fact, it appears that he pulled off the same scheme several years ago using phone numbers provided by Steve Hamilton, who now operates Pacific Telecom. Accuardi Scheme Involving DigitCom and Telephone Management Corporation In 2009, Telephone Management Corporation was sued by Verizon Wireless for it’s role in an illegal telemarketing scheme pit****g dubious “auto warranties.” Here’s how the District Court summarized Verizon’s allegations: According to Plaintiffs, “[t]he TMC Defendants’ role in the telemarketing scheme is to obtain ANIs [automatic number identifications that appear on a call recipient’s caller ID equipment] from non-party telecommunications service providers and to provide those ANIs to the Caller Defendants.” Id. at 5 (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 23-31). In turn, Plaintiffs allege, the Caller Defendants use the ANIs to “obscure their iden***ies from call recipients by rotating the ANIs constantly in direct contravention of the FTC’s telemarketing rules.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 29, 31). Plaintiffs further allege that “[w]hen Verizon Wireless customers and employees have attempted to call back the ANIs that appear on their Caller IDs when they receive Telemarketing Calls, they have been unable to learn the iden***y of the caller, as they have received an automated message that the call was received ‘in error’ and directing them to press ‘1’ to be removed from the call list.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶¶ 29-32). Moreover, Plaintiffs****ert that “[t]he TMC Defendants are aware of, or willfully blind to, the fact that the Caller Defendants’ use of large numbers of ANIs is to conceal their iden***ies from call recipients and to evade the consequences of illegal telemarketing.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶ 31). Additionally, Plaintiffs allege that “Joseph Johnson, an officer of Voice Solutions[,] testified in his deposition [that] TMC was aware of the Caller Defendants’ involvement in illegal telemarketing.” Id. Lastly,Plaintiffs****ert that “Verizon Wireless has repeatedly informed the TMC Defendants of illegal telemarketing campaigns and requested their cooperation in halting such calls; however, TMC has not cooperated.” Id. (citing Compl. at ¶ 31; Marx. Cert. ¶¶ 3-6, Exs. B-D). Although the substance of Verizon’s claims a***nst Fred Accuardi’s company were seemingly confirmed during this litigation, the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed after over a year of legal maneuvering. During this scheme, Fred Accuardi and company appear to have been utilizing telephone numbers from a public telecom utility named DigitCom Services Inc. Incidentally, the President of DigitCom was none other than Steve Hamilton, who now operates Pacific Telecom. Fred Accuardi appears to have profited from the millions of unsolicited telemarketing calls via what his firm called their “CNAM Revenue Sharing Program,” which was made possible through their use of DigitCom’s CNAM provisioned telephone numbers: Accuardi’s Current Scheme Involving Pacific Telecom Communications Group and International Telephone Corporation These days, Fred Accuardi appears to operate the same scheme, but this time his activities are conducted through a shell company registered in Belize called International Telephone Corporation. Although this company is registered in Belize, it seems to be operated by Fred Accuardi and his team out of his Portland Oregon office. In fact, their web site shares the same Portland Oregon web server as Telephone Management Corporation. Here is the web portal telemarketers use to access their CNAM revenue reports. In response to law enforcement subpoenas, Pacific Telecom named International Telephone Corporation as the en***y utilizing the phone numbers that were used for illegal telemarketing. Pacific Telecom most likely has full knowledge of this scheme. Fred Accuardi’s son, F Antone Accuardi, is the general legal council for both Pacific Telecom and Telephone Management Corporation. As an attorney registered in the State of Oregon, F Antone Accuardi has an obligation to report his knowledge of illegal activity to law enforcement. Stay tuned for a future article where we hope to publish difficult to obtain records that will fully do***ent the iden***ies of the anonymous owners behind International Telephone Corporation. In the mean time, Fred Accuardi has not been charged with any crimes by authorities, nor has the FTC taken action a***nst him or Pacific Telecom for their alleged roles in illegal telemarketing. 5 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 24, 2012 · 5:09 pm Another Recording of Illegal Telemarketing Call Involving Pacific Telecom Phone Number Recently, an individual who has been harassed by unsolicited telemarketing calls passed along a recording of one of those calls from August 21, 2012 from 206-496-0929, which is a Washington State phone number belonging to Pacific Telecom Communications Group. The Caller ID name was transmitted as: “Winner” This telemarketing call was made to a residential phone number registered on the Federal Do Not Call list. This individual has never given any consent to be called from these telemarketers and in fact has struggled to find a way to get the calls to stop. Click HERE to listen to this recording. This is a transcript of the telemarketing pitch: *****o. The FBI reports there is a home break-in every 15 seconds. Your local police recommend you protect your home. If you will allow us to place a small sign in your yard, we will install a new security system at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever. There is no cost for the system or the installation whatsoever. To hear more, press 1 now. To be placed on our do not call list, press 9. It’s important to note that this call is a sales call for home security services - while the telemarketer emphatically states that there is “absolutely no cost to you whatsoever,” consumers report that this scheme involves requiring the consumer to pay an upfront fee for the security device (which is supposed refunded later), along with monthly fees to subscribe to the security monitoring service. This appears to be a clear violation of both the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule and 47 USC § 227. If any other readers have any recordings of telemarketing calls involving Pacific Telecom phone numbers, please leave a comment here if you would like this recording published in a future article. 5 Comments Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group August 17, 2012 · 11:57 pm Are Pacific Telecom’s Services Sold to Telemarketers Through a Shell Company Registered in Belize? This article is going to show the connections between the “public utility” Pacific Telecom Communications Group and their customer in Belize who uses phone numbers that are****ociated with illegal telemarketing. Here’s how it looks like this scheme works: Pacific Telecom Communications Group - Registers as a Public Utility in several States, obtains blocks of telephone numbers. Operated by Steve Hamilton, with support from F Antone Accuardi. International Telephone Corporation – A 3rd party legal en***y, registered in Belize, who according to a subpoena, utilizes Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers identified in illegal telemarketing calls. Technology infrastructure is based in Portland Oregon and hosted by a company called www.spiretech.com. Appears to be a shell company for Fred and F Antone Accuardi. Unknown Telemarketers - Purchase International Telephone Corporation’s web based call center services that allow them to “handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns” from a laptop. Our guess is that the individuals who use these services for illegal purposes are based in the United States. A previous post on this blog asked the question, Are Pacific Telecom and Telephone Management Corp. Partners in Telemarketing? In that article, we detailed some connections between these two companies, including the fact that they share the same general legal counsel, F Antone Accuardi. Antone’s ***her, Fred Accuardi, is president of Telephone Management Corp. Well, it turns out that Fred Accuardi is affiliated with a company called International Telephone Corporation, which purports to be based in the country of Belize. This conclusion is based on the fact that someone published a comment on this blog under the name Fred Accuardi and listed [email protected] as his email address: Please set them straight Dad Fred Accuardi was an email follower of this blog basically since it s****ed, using the address ***elephonemanagement.net, but appears to have accidentally sent a public message from his International Telephone Corp. address. The instruction to “Please set them straight” appears to be directed at his son, attorney F Antone Accuardi. This comment certainly feels a bit menacing though, it doesn’t sound like he approves of the information published here – he certainly will not be pleased that information about his Belize connections have been made public. The website for International Telephone Corporation describes the services they provide: International Telephone Corporation is a worldwide leader in managed Caller ID services. ITC provides services for its customers spanning four continents and is a proven leader in the fast emerging hosted call center industry. Utilizing ITC’s Internet based customer interface, call center managers have sophisticated capabilities readily available to them from their laptop to handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns. After this article was first published, the web page was taken offline, but here is an arc***ed copy: There is also a prominent “do not call” disclaimer about “unwanted” calls, yet there is no clear way to actually contact this company or their compliance department: If you are a consumer and you have received an unwanted call from an ITC telephone number, please contact our compliance department and we will be happy to****ist you in being blocked from receiving future calls from that party. The website for International Telephone Corporation is 69.168.53.15, which is traced back to a hosting facility right here in Portland Oregon called Spire Tech. The web site for Telephone Management Corporation is also located at the same exact IP address in Oregon. International Telephone Corp. also has a site called Reports.Inttelephone.com located at that same IP address. The ***le of the page is “CNAM Reports” and it contains a login screen. There is also a separate domain name, www.revenue-reports.com, that points to this same web site: The “CNAM Reports” is likely a reference to a CNAM revenue sharing program that appears to involve generating and sharing revenue from the telephone calls that are made during unsolicited telemarketing campaigns. Telephone Management Corporation describes it this way: The web site also states that International Telephone Corp. is registered in the country of Belize. Even though the web site is located in Portland Oregon, the Belize connection could be significant for several reasons: International Telephone Corporation Uses Telephone Numbers Identified In Illegal Telemarketing Calls – In response to a subpoena from the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, Pacific Telecom identified International Telephone Corporation in Belize as the en***y who was using their phone numbers for illegal telemarketing calls. F Antone Accuardi Formerly Practiced Law From Belize – F Antone Accuardi marketed himself as the managing partner of Inter Law Group on the web site http://www.InterLawGroup.com. Here’s an excerpt of his biographical profile, where he also announces his affiliation with Telephone Management Corporation: … Mr. Accuardi engaged in complex commercial litigation before joining the consulting firm of TM Corp in Portland, Oregon as their general counsel and lead tax consultant. His duties aside from commercial litigation in Federal and state courts were in the areas of taxation research and the securing of substantial excise tax refunds for TMC’s mainly fortune 500 clientèle. … He is currently a founder of a the Interlaw Group and has been permanently residing in between the United States and Belize since 2001. http://web.arc***e.org/web/20080517021945/http://www.interlawgroup.com/about/ F Antone Accuardi’s web site describes some very interesting off s**** financial transaction services that are offered by his firm: As a client of Interlaw you will enjoy exclusive treatment, you won’t need to be sending your funds off to an account in the Cayman Islands or to Belize as other firms will have you do. You can send your funds directly to one of our attorney’s U.S. trust accounts, not only ensuring your funds are being allocated as per your wishes, but also ensuring the appearance of a very standard transaction, rather than one that authorities feel that they should scrutinize. http://web.arc***e.org/web/20041210210058/http://www.interlawgroup.com/ This line is a nice touch: “ensuring the appearance of a very standard transaction, rather than one that authorities feel that they should scrutinize.” Utilizing an attorney “IOLTA” trust account to disguise the transfer of funds to a foreign tax haven to help a client avoid complying with tax rules is simply not legal. In addition, the receipt of more than $10,000 in ***ulative funds from a single source into an IOLTA trust account should be reported to the IRS, according to section §6050I of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Here are the guidelines an IRS examiner would follow if they were to audit F Antone Accuardi’s attorney trust account : The examiner is responsible for supporting the goals of the BSA program: to identify, detect and deter money laundering whether it is in furtherance of a criminal enterprise, terrorism, tax evasion, or other unlawful activity. The examiner must be alert to efforts by customers or businesses to structure transactions to avoid the filing of Form 8300. 4.26.12.2 (06-01-2006) Attorney Overview 1. Attorneys have the****ential for receiving large amounts of cash for legal services or funds to be held in trust. 2. Attorneys usually generate fees based either on retainer or contingency. See Terminology for definitions and discussion. 3. In addition to general operating accounts, attorneys have trust or escrow accounts to hold funds in trust for their clients. Dollar amounts may be large and the****ential for cash transactions is high. 4. Attorney-client privilege is a legally recognized privilege that protects confidential communication between attorney and client. However, the iden***y of a client and the amount of cash paid by the client to the attorney is not generally considered privileged information under the attorney-client privilege. http://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-026-012.html Hiding in a Belize Tax Haven - The primary advantage of registering a company in Belize is the special International Business Company designation, which essentially allows foreigners who don’t plan to actually conduct business in Belize to set up a legal en***y. Here are some key summary points about the IBC, as marketed by a company that sells services to set up a Belize tax haven: * Can be formed in a matter of hours. * Do not pay any taxes to the country of Belize. * No requirements to file annual reports or any other report with the Belize government. * No one will know how much $$ you have hidden in Belize: “Belize does not disclose its banking or fiscal information under any information-exc****e agreements to any foreign parties on grounds of suspected tax evasion.” * No one will even know who owns the IBC: “The only do***ents of a Belize IBC held on public record are the Memorandum and the Articles of****ociation. These do***ents do not contain any indication as to the actual beneficial owners, directors or controllers of the company.” * Foreign governments are prohibited from seizing any****ets of an IBC, regardless of any legal judgement. F Antone Accuardi may present himself as some sort of tax law genius, but The New York Times recently published an article about how incredibly simple it is for an individual to set up a tax shelter in Belize: Setting up the company was a lot cheaper than I expected. A&P charged $900 for a basic Belizean incorporation and another $85 for a corporate seal to emboss legal do***ents. For $650 more, A&P offered to open a bank account to stash my fledgling operation’s money in Singapore — a country, the Web site also noted, that “cannot gather information on foreigners’ bank accounts, bank-deposit interest and investment ***ns under domestic tax law.” And for another $690, it offered to****ign a “nominee” who would be listed as the official manager and owner of my business but would report to me under a secret power-o****torney contract. Then an A&P****ociate asked me to fill out the incorporation information online, just so she wouldn’t type in anything incorrectly. The whole thing took about 10 minutes. … In order to investigate my Belizean company’s bank account in Singapore, for instance, the I.R.S. would need to identify my bank and bank-account number, prove I had broken the law and then pe***ion judges in Belize and Singapore to issue court orders forcing the release of my information. It’s a nearly impossible standard. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/my-big-***-belizean-singaporean-bank-account.html What can be done to stop this telemarketing if Pacific Telecom and F Antone Accuardi shelter their activities behind a Belize shell company? * Report Pacific Telecom’s activities to State and Federal regulators. Enforce regulatory rules to prevent Steve Hamilton, F Antone Accuardi and other principles in this scheme from ever operating a public telecommunications utility. * Report Tax Fraud to the IRS – Pacific Telecom is required to file annual reports to Utility regulators in several States. Some reports show zero revenue, while others show tiny amounts. If the income of Pacific Telecom and the Accuardi family is not being reported properly or is being hidden in Belize, the IRS has a form to report this here: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=106778,00.html and they even offer a Whistle****er reward. * Legal Action – The U.S. Department of Justice and State Attorney Generals should take prompt legal action to stop any unlawful activity that may be occurring. * Criminal Charges – If any conspi**** to facilitate telemarketing fraud and hide the****ets exists, there could be criminal penalties that will be applicable. Frankly, this is perhaps the only way to truly stop telemarketing****ociated with these individuals. To recap, this new information about a possible Accuardi telecom business based in Belize could be totally unrelated to the unsolicited telemarketing calls****ociated with Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers. Another possibility is that this is the “smoking gun” that reveals insights into how Pacific Telecom’s services can be sold to telemarketers through the secrecy of a foreign shell company. Once a***n, we have no specific knowledge of a conspi**** (criminal or otherwise), but theorize that it’s possible a scheme could operate so****ing like this: Pacific Telecom Communications Group - Registers as a Public Utility in several States, obtains blocks of telephone numbers. Operated by Steve Hamilton, with support from F Antone Accuardi. International Telephone Corporation – A 3rd party legal en***y, registered in Belize, who according to a subpoena, utilizes Pacific Telecom’s phone numbers identified in illegal telemarketing calls. Technology infrastructure is based in Portland Oregon and hosted by a company called www.spiretech.com. Appears to be a shell company for Fred and F Antone Accuardi. Unknown Telemarketers - Purchase International Telephone Corporation’s web based call center services that allow them to “handle one or thousands of different calling campaigns” from a laptop. Our guess is that the individuals who use these services for illegal purposes are based in the United States. Please evaluate this information from a skeptical viewpoint and carefully draw your own conclusions. Leave a Comment Filed under Pacific Telecom Communications Group · 8:21 pm Pacific Telecom and Inbound Telemarketing According to the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule, a Telemarketer is defined as: (cc) Telemarketer means any person who, in connection with telemarketing, initiates or receives telephone calls to or from a customer or donor. Lately, there have been reports of unsolicited telemarketing calls from Pacific Telecom phone numbers that involve adverti*****ts for web sites. It is interesting to note that at least one of these adverti*****ts can be heard when a consumer dials back the phone number seen in their CallerID. For instance, there have been many complaints about telemarketing involving 503-457-1283, which is one of Pacific Telecom’s Oregon phone numbers. As of August 17th, 2012, when I call this number I hear the following recorded message: *****o, we are looking for people in your area who are interested in earning cash for taking short surveys and playing games online. If you’d be interested, please visit our web site at www. SurveyFromPhone.com for more information. It’s free to sign up, there are no strings attached, just simple surveys and games that earn you cash every day. If you need to hear our domain a***n, SurveyFromPhone.com, just call us back on the number that showed up on your caller ID. Once a***n, that’s SurveyFromPhone.com. S-u-r-v-e-y-F-r-o-m-P-h-o-n-e-.-com. Thanks and have a blessed day. To be removed from this list, you can also press 9 now. (Click Here to Listen to Actual Recording, recorded on 08-14-2012 From 503-457-1283) This telemarketing pitch may use the term “survey,” but it certainly does not seem to fall under any exemption from the Federal Telemarketing Sales Rule. In fact, this appears to be an abusive telemarketing practice because it’s asking a consumer to engage in playing games for the chance to obtain some ***ue cash payout, which seems to fit the definition of a “prize promotion“: (y) Prize means anything offered, or purportedly offered, and given, or purportedly given, to a person by chance. For purposes

Nothing that you do will stop them from calling you. The major players behind this have made millions of dollars, which means that they are too big to fail. One of the major players specializes in aiding the rich with tax evasion and shell corporations set up in Belize. You can bet that the well to do in this country are not getting lower your credit card interest rate calls and due to that fact our government just considers a few phone calls a minor annoyance. The FCC has temporarily halted 5 of the minor unprofitable boiler rooms. They will receive a slap on the wrist and be back at it within a few days. In the meantime the calls will continue since the major money is being made with what is called a CNAM revenue-sharing program through companies like http://www.telephonemanagement.net and http://www.CallerID4U.com In their own words: 'Every day your company makes thousands of outbound phone calls. Every one of those calls generates revenue for many companies, why not yours? Our CNAM revenue-sharing program helps you make money every time a Caller ID request is made by a phone carrier. A high-traffic call center can lose ***dreds to thousands of dollars a day to phone carriers by allowing them to charge for access to your own data.' You can now see why the criminals keep calling even though they know you won't fall for their scam. If someone does make the mistake of answering the phone and falling for their con then it is just icing on the cake for them. These people are the lowest form of filth on this planet. The only way to stop this is to contact the FBI and ask why this crime family is allowed to operate and facilitate the ongoing criminal operations. This is one of the reasons that the RICO act was put in place, so why aren't they using it. Is this because this isn't a high profile, news worthy operation or is the FBI too understaffed and busy with Homeland Security issues. Maybe if we were rich they would take this seriously, but then if we were rich we would be using that criminal organizations services and protecting them instead of trying to shut them down. It is alleged that they launder money from Pacific Telecom through a trust bank account in Oregon and into foreign accounts at Scotiabank in Belize and other destinations. Why hasn't the FBI used the RICO act and gone after this organization? On October 15, 1970, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968), commonly referred to as the 'RICO Act', became United States law. The RICO Act allowed law enforcement to charge a person or group of people with racketeering, defined as committing multiple violations of certain varieties within a ten-year period. The purpose of the RICO Act was stated as 'the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce'. S.Rep. No.****, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1968). However, the statute is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce. Any criminal activity can be reported to the FBI here: https://tips.fbi.gov Report it at http://www.fcc.gov/complaints Report it at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov People should continually file complaints with their Attorney Generals office. There is a blog site that has information on one of these operations: http://telemarketerspam.wordpress.com

If it's a call that I don't recognize on my cell, I simply don't answer it. Do what I do when they call your home -- press the "1" prompt to get a person on the line and as soon as they s**** talking, blast them with an air horn. Maybe if enough of us do it, they'll get the message......

The person who called me told me if I did not like getting these scam calls I should just c****e my number. Is it that hard to make a buck in America? Sick. Try Chipotle - they are usually hiring.

Illegal telemarketer. But of course the FTC will never do anything. If you file a complaint, they will just add it to a. 'database available to law enforcement agencies'. *** lot of good that will do...

So tired of continually receiving these same unwanted phone calls! For each and every unwanted call, please report at both Federal Communications Commission (FCC) websites. 'Squeaky wheel gets the grease.' Please squeak loud! www.fcc.gov/complaints https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form1088.action

So tired of continually receiving these same unwanted phone calls! For each and every unwanted call, please report at both Federal Communications Commission (FCC) websites. 'Squeaky wheel gets the grease.' Please squeak loud! www.fcc.gov/complaints https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form1088.action

they won't stop calling. I have asked them repeatedly to please stop. they are calling my home and my cell, both are on the do not call list.

Ditto to most comments below. I just don't answer my cell when I see these numbers, but still a pain.

I wish there was s way to get them to stop. They are such a pain in the a--.

Got a call today I did not answer since I already knew they were trash.

more "cardmember" spam/scam bs...FTC better do so****ing about this soon.

They called. I didn't answer. They didn't leave a msg.

Came a minute after Tiffinay's call. What the heck?!?!

when u ask anything they **** up total harassment

'tiffany' from cardholder services... new employee?

Why can't these people be stopped?

Why can't these people be stopped?

Card holder services .. spammer

Tiffany at Cardholder Services...a***n!

(402) 982-0422 Omaha, NE

Don't call a***n

Still spamming!! lhd

Slam

Spam

***k****s.

Spam

"Tiffany from Card Holder Services" sounds just like "Ann from Card Holder Services", etc. These people are scammers and want your credit card info under the promise of lower credit card rates. They just continue to c****e their caller ID number. Never works to press '3' to be removed. They will just continue to harass you. Any reputable company would remove someone from their robodial list rather than continue to harass them. That pretty much tells you this is no reputable company.

I can lower my credit card rate! WooHoo!

Here comes the mul***ude of spam calls.

Did not leave message

Did not leave message

Spam for sure

No message left

No message left

Annoying spammy s***mers!

S***bag spammer

No messge

Annoying..

Span

Spam

They keep calling my work number.

****up - didn't leave a msg