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What is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act?

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a federal law and it protects people from robocalls. Robocalls are the calls you get on your phone. When you answer, there’s either a few second delay or there’s an automated message telling you to press one to speak with a live representative. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, companies cannot place robocalls to you unless they have your permission.

For example, if you apply for a credit card, that company, as part of their credit card agreement, gives them permission to place robocalls to you. You are allowed to tell them to stop and if they continue, you would have a case under the TCPA.
Under the TCPA, damages actually range from $500 to $1,500 per phone call. We have had cases against companies where they’ve called our clients hundreds and even a handful of cases where they’ve called our clients thousands of times. So as you can imagine, the damages in these types of cases go up exponentially.

There has been an influx of TCPA cases over the last, say five or 10 years. A lot of companies, due to financial reasons, had to become compliant. And some of the companies that still use phone systems that trigger liability under the TCPA are banks or bigger institutions and they’ve implemented procedures to stop calling when people say stop calling.

But if you get a robocall on your cell phone and you did not give the company on the other line permission to place that robocall, you would have a case under the TCPA. Or, if that company is placing a robocall to you and you have told them to stop and they continue to call, likewise, you would have a case under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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