Cybersecurity Policy Report, Telco Faces $4.5M FCC Fine Over Role in Robocall Scam, (Apr 3, 2026)

By Lynn Stanton

The FCC yesterday unanimously found Voxbeam Telecommunications, Inc., apparently liable for transmitting foreign traffic into the U.S. that used North American Numbering Plan (NANP) resources in the caller ID field and for accepting traffic from a foreign provider, Axfone LLC, that is not listed in the FCC’s robocall mitigation database (RMD).

“Between March 31, 2025 and April 3, 2025, Voxbeam transmitted tens of thousands of calls from Axfone onto the U.S. network. Many of the calls transmitted from Axfone through Voxbeam appear to spoof fraud prevention or customer services phone numbers belonging to U.S. financial institutions including Bank of America, Chase Bank, and others,” the FCC said, FCC, Notice for Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, File No. EB-TCD-25-00038659 (March 31, 2026).

“Axfone is a voice service provider located in Czechia. Axfone claims that it provides services to ‘not only private households, small and medium-sized enterprises but also large international companies, government authorities and other public bodies.’ Axfone is not—and has never been—listed in the RMD. During the Financial Institution’s investigation, a traceback response from Axfone listed the calling customer as ‘Tyler Perry,’” the notice of apparent liability (NAL) explains.

Voxbeam acknowledged that it did not check for an RMD listing for Axfone, which it said had been its customer from 2012 to 2017 before the account went dormant until March 31, 2025, when “a ‘burst’ exploit of a historically dormant account” allowed the spoofed traffic into Voxbeam’s network, the NAL says.

“The Company flagged the traffic and blocked the traffic from Axfone within 72 hours after the traffic began and less than 24 hours since it received the ITG [Industry Traceback Group] traceback. Furthermore, it continued to block over 200,000 call attempts from Axfone. Since the incident, Voxbeam claims that it ‘specifically monitor[s] for “dormant account reactivation” to prevent a recurrence’ and ‘automatically rejects calls from any source that does not have a valid RMD number and the correct signing of calls,’” the notice adds.

“Requiring that providers only accept traffic from providers whose filings appear in the RMD is one of the Commission’s most important enforcement tools for protecting consumers from illegal robocall traffic and spoofed calls. Had Voxbeam checked the RMD prior to transmitting Axfone’s calls, it would have known to block Axfone and prevented 60,873 spoofed calls from reaching U.S. subscribers,” it says.

The NAL also proposes a $4.5 million penalty for Voxbeam, which represents the application of the base per-call forfeiture amount of $2,500 for each call that a provider fails to block in violation of the Commission’s mandatory rules for the subset of 2,250 accepted by Voxbeam from Axfone that the Enforcement Bureau verified (a total of $5.625 million), reduced by 20% in light of Voxbeam’s “prompt action to mitigate the traffic.” The company has 30 days to pay the full amount of the forfeiture or to file a written statement seeking a reduction or cancellation of the proposed forfeiture.

In a statement, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said, “Companies like Voxbeam must ensure they are not accepting traffic from sketchy operators. These gateway providers are the on-ramps to American phone networks and with that business model comes significant responsibility. As we saw in this case, failure to follow the FCC’s robocall mitigation rules can result in tens of thousands of scam calls reaching U.S. customers.”

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