Bob's Do-Not-Call Protection Blog

TCPA filings increased 17.6% in November over October 2017. About 38% of these plaintiffs have sued more than once under call prohibition statutes. The court's time continues to be clogged by frivolous lawsuits from hungry attorneys looking for a quick buck in the calling arena - culminating in a recent flu shot call suit. Yet record-breaking numbers of illegal robocalls continue unabated. What's up?

With all the recent changes in call outreach methods, we're taking a look at what's available, what might work for your call marketing efforts and the latest feedback from legal. 

It can be frustrating for individual and regional office Real Estate agents looking for TCPA call protections. Corporate offices do want compliance coverage for their outsourced agents, but hesitate to commit with the implied liability exposure. Can we reach a happy medium?

Are the carriers over-suppressing potential bad player calls? Probably. For sure consumer caller ID cell messages like "Telemarketer" from AT&T and "Likely Scam" from Tmobile are cutting down on call completions from marketers by the millions. 

Top members at PACE (Formerly the American Teleservices Association) are quietly exploring ways to help carriers suppress bad actor solicitations more accurately. The ones that route calls all over the world and can't be caught. This includes a scheme to have call compliance service providers work directly with carriers to ensure more on-target suppression. The reason? If such low completion rates continue, this could cripple the telemarketing industry.

The problem with reassigned number altercations is they're usually combined with other charges like express consent proof, written permissions and where that lead came from in the first place. Tracking the original prospect source has become the #1 issue with TCPA defense attorneys today: "Lead verifications that will hold up in court are like chasing rabbits down a rabbit hole!" they say. And reassigns are right there in the middle.

You almost can't buy outside leads today as a Business to Business outreach entity. Traditionally, B2B's have casually sold prospects among themselves, eventually losing track of where each came from - if it had proper TCPA compliant language or how many times it had been re-jiggered. This worked pretty well until cell laws became owner agnostic in 2013 and litigation increased, particularly against companies calling other companies.

Unfortunately, texting to cell phones is now considered a cellular call, and treated under the more stringent TCPA interpretations. And B2C attorneys have moved over to the more lucrative and easier B2B prosecutions after the wireless laws changed October 16'th 2013 making them consumer agnostic. The text also leaves a "trail" you can't deny. And any kind of auto-assisted dialing or pre-recorded robocalling to cells is a B2B no-no now too - so texting surely qualifies as that! 

You may have heard about the Illinois Action registered by the federal government and some states ending in a $280 million dollar civil penalty against Dish Network last June. The amount was decreased from the original $2.1 billion petitioned by Plaintiffs as the court commented, "this is a minuscule fraction of maximum possible penalties and damages." Fast forward to this month in North Carolina Court, and Dish may be on a path to finally pay up.

How did the professional caller go from being a welcome break in the day to making people never want to pick up?

Once upon a time my mother answered the phone to the soothing sounds of a man's deep voice selling magazine subscriptions. She listened intently to the presentation on the importance of staying up with the latest fashions, haircuts and makeup lines. She eagerly bought, feeling great about herself. When I asked her why she took the subscription, she said: "Because I love the sound of his voice." 

With Litigant Scrub, you won’t know what you’ve missed. The trouble that's been averted. Call prohibition court trips avoided. Almost going out of business from call violation class actions. You can't prove Litigant Scrub works because you can’t prove what what didn't happen. But here’s a hint: Have you been to TCPA court? If so, you’ll probably suffer that nightmare again. And you might want to do something about it proactively.