The legal issues Purple is facing with interpreters and unions is only the beginning of their problems. Purple Communications also will face fines from FCC for $11.9 Million dollars alleging that the company improperly billed the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, “The FCC found that the Rocklin, CA company sought and received millions in reimbursements from the TRS fund for customers with names that were so clearly false that they could not have been the actual names of eligible users, including names like “sdfsdf cicwcicw,” “ Myname Yourname,” and “Lot$a Money.” ” (FCC)

They found out that Purple Communications has billed the TRS (ip-relay) fund for calls by more than 40,000 people with names that have “random keystrokes, vulgarities, or addresses.” Based on this, the fine is based on part of the amount that Purple obtained from the TRS funds from 2010 – 2011 for those users. For more information, check out the press release by FCC.

The notice of apparent liability is available for futher viewing by individuals that are interested in more information about Purple and their wrong-doing against FCC. The discussion that was conducted about Purple Communications and their actions included some statements about their misconduct. 


FCC is very concerned about widespread abuse of the system because of situations such as this one. FCC has been attacked for actions that slowly take TRS/VRS providers out of the picture and this information coming to light really helps the community better understand that fraud is so widespread that almost no TRS/VRS provider can claim they have never participated. The community will never know the truth behind abuse and fraud but this is another possible explanation of why FCC wants to cut back rates and focus on a possible third-party vendor for platform usage. 

Written by Mary Pat Withem