First Orion Remains Leading Source for Providing Call Complaint Data to the FTC

New FTC Report Finds Debt Collection Calls Top Complaint List Followed by Imposter Scams and Identity Theft

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Mar 23, 2017, 12:03 ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., March 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First Orion today announced its users filed 31% of all call complaints last year, according to the recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel Network Report.

Visit here for the full FTC report.

PrivacyStar is the first mobile app to integrate with the recently announced First Orion Network Enterprise Solutions (FONES) platform. With FONES, PrivacyStar is now able to identify new scam callers in real-time, while providing identification of nuisance callers and scammers.

"This year consumers will unnecessarily receive over 9 billion calls from known scammers and another 50 billion nuisance calls," said Jonathan Sasse, CMO of First Orion. "Our mission has always been to provide caller transparency and protect consumers against unwanted calls. We still remain the leading provider of call complaint data to the FTC and continue to protect all customers from malicious callers."

Some report highlights are:

Debt collection was the number one complaint category with 28% of overall complaints, followed by imposter scams (13%), identity theft (13%), telephone and mobile services (10%), and banks and lenders (5%).
Over 1.2 million complaints were fraud-related and consumers reported paying out over $744 million with the median amount paid being $450, which is $50 more than 2015.
Employment- or tax-related fraud (34%) was the most common form of reported identity theft. Followed by credit card fraud (33%), phones or utilities fraud (13%) and bank fraud (12%).

In addition to providing PrivacyStar applications for Android and iOS users, First Orion offers FONES for carriers and service providers to deliver the highest level of confidence and flexibility in protecting subscribers from scams and other unwanted calls. FONES enables carriers to easily and seamlessly deploy settings to protect all customers from identified malicious callers, such as known scammers that use robocalling.

About PrivacyStar
PrivacyStar is available as a free download for Android smartphones and iPhones and powers call management solutions for many leading mobile carriers. Each month, PrivacyStar blocks millions of calls and files hundreds of thousands of call complaints on behalf of customers directly with the Federal Trade Commission for Do Not Call, Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and TCPA (Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act) violations. PrivacyStar is a First Orion company.

About First Orion
First Orion provides data and phone call transparency solutions across multiple platforms, world-class data solutions, in-network call control and its PrivacyStar powered application solutions. First Orion Network Enterprise Solutions (FONES) currently provides call control, call blocking, call transparency and call management solutions to millions of mobile handsets. With branded and white-labeled applications as well as in-network solutions, First Orion assists mobile carriers in protecting mobile subscribers from unwanted or unknown calls, including Scammers, robocalls and Telemarketers. First Orion is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas with offices in Seattle, Dallas and London. For regular updates, please visit www.FirstOrion.com.

PrivacyStar and First Orion are registered trademarks of First Orion Corp. All registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:
Jackie Eicholz
First Orion
831.401.3175
[email protected]

SOURCE First Orion