Breaking News English

America's Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, has fined a man who they say [laced / placed] nearly 100 million robocalls. A robocall is a telephone call that is made [at / by] a computer programme. The software can make thousands of calls [at / that] a time. The FCC fined the man a record $120 million because they say he [supposed / posed] a threat to public safety. The FCC says the man's calls were [illegally / illegal] because many of them were made to "critical emergency phone [line / lines] ". The FCC said many other calls went to mobile phones and [residing / residential] telephones without the person [being / been] called wanting that call. This means the call was a nuisance call - a [bit / bite] like spam e-mail, which is also unwanted and [annoying / annoy] .

The FCC said the man committed a [seriously / serious] crime and carried out, "one of the [largest / large] and most dangerous illegal robocalling campaigns that the Commission has [never / ever] investigated". The man made 96 million robocalls [doing / during] a three-month period in 2016 as a part of a "telemarketing scheme". He used a [technical / technique] called "neighbor spoofing" to get people to answer the calls. This technique [trick / tricks] people into thinking the calls are from a [local / locally] telephone number. The man also tricked people [into / onto] believing that the calls were from well-known airlines, hotels and [traveling / travel] companies. Callers were instead passed on to call centres that tried to sell them property. The man said he has [done / doing] nothing wrong.