The Federal Communications Commission issued new rules concerning robo-calling under the Telephone Consumer Privacy Act, or TCPA.  Among other things the TCPA provides remedies for consumers when they receive auto-dialed telemarketing or collection calls to their cellphone when the consumer has not given the caller permission.

Under the TCPA, consumers have the right to sue for $500 per unauthorized robocall to their cell phone with that number tripled in cases of intentional violations.  The  Consumer Law Office of Steve Hofer is working on Two TCPA cases at present.

The banks had lobbied for complete exemption of liability to wrong number telephone numbers. The FCC made a slight concession and now exempts one call to a wrong number phone.  This is the right decision.  Nobody really files suit for one call anyway. The TCPA does not have a clause providing for attorney fees separate from the consumer’s per call damages. That means that attorney fees for the violations have to come out of the consumer’s damages.  Unless the consumer has been called numerous times, there is no economic incentive to file suit.  If a bank or other commercial caller calls your phone one time by mistake, there’s not enough harm to justify a law suit.  But if a bank calls your phone “by mistake” numerous times it is harmful enough to justify damages just to encourage the caller to be more careful.