Those phone calls from telemarketers are more than just annoying. Under federal law, they can also be illegal. Consumers have successfully taken action against telemarketers and recovered money for violations of the law. You do not just have to deal with it when telemarketers are breaking the law. You can hire an experienced attorney to file a lawsuit on your behalf.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act has been on the books for over three decades. Unwanted phone calls (on landlines) and faxes were spiraling out of control. Fast forward to today, and the problem is even worse as technology has given telemarketers new tools to annoy consumers. Now, they can reach you where you are through calls to your mobile device and junk texts. Given the extensive reach of telemarketers, you must take strong legal action to stop them.
How the TCPA Protects You From Unwanted Calls
The TCPA prohibits the following:
- Phone calls to residences during the night and early morning hours
- Phone calls to residences with automated voices or recordings
- Text messaging someone else on a wireless phone using an automatic telephone dialing system
- Phone calls for five years after you have told the telemarketer not to contact you
Telemarketers are required to maintain a do-not-call registry. As a consumer, you have the right to place yourself on a national Do-Not-Call registry that telemarketers must honor. If you are on the registry, companies can only call you with permission or if you have recently done business with them within the last 18 months. Some businesses break these rules, thinking that they can get away with it.
Potential Penalties in a TCPA Case
The government can take an enforcement action against a company that violates provisions of the TCPA. Even more important for your purposes, the telemarketer can also be held liable to you in a civil lawsuit. It does not matter whether you suffered a financial loss. By virtue of breaking the law, the telemarketer must pay.
Usually, a civil lawsuit against a telemarketer proceeds as a class action lawsuit. If the telemarketer is making unwanted calls or sending texts to you, chances are that they are making thousands or millions of these communications.
The TCPA provides that you can recover the following in a lawsuit against the telemarketer:
- $500 per violation of the TCPA
- Triple damages if the defendant was found to have willfully violated the law
There are no statutory limits on damages. There have been cases where defendants have been ordered to pay or have settled cases for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. The court will consider the realities of the situation, meaning that they may not order a defendant to pay billions of dollars if they made millions of calls. However, you could get up to $1500 for unwanted phone calls and texts.