On June 18, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (\u201cFCC\u201d) strengthened the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (\u201cTCPA\u201d) by adopting a proposal that protects consumers from receiving robocalls and spam texts if consumers do not first give their consent. This action stemmed from thousands of consumer complaints made to the FCC regarding robocalls and robotexts. The FCC receives more consumer complaints regarding unwanted calls than any other category of complaints. In 2014, there were over 215,000 complaints to the FCC. In this action the FCC addressed these complaints by clarifying its interpretation of the TCPA and by strengthening consumer protections from unwanted calls and texts.<\/p>\n
The strengthened protections for landline and wireless consumers include the ability for service providers to offer \u201crobocall blocking technologies\u201d to consumers to prevent unwanted calls, and the right for consumers to revoke their consent from receiving robotexts and robocalls at any time. Additionally, the FCC ruled that if a phone number has been reassigned, companies must stop calling that number after one call. Finally, the FCC strengthened third-party consumer rights by stating that a consumer whose name is in the contacts list of another person\u2019s phone does not consent to receive robocalls from applications downloaded by the other person\u00a0The FCC adopted additional protections for wireless consumers. The first includes affirming the definition of an \u201cautodialer\u201d. An autodialer is defined by law as any technology with the capacity<\/strong> to dial random or sequential numbers. Autodialers are prohibited from contacting consumers without their prior consent. This definition prevents robocallers from creating loopholes in consent requirements to reach out to consumers who did not give prior consent. The FCC also reaffirmed that text messages are afforded the same protections as voice calls regarding consent.\u00a0 Further, it was determined that equipment used to send internet-to-phone text messages is also considered to be an autodialer, so the caller must have consent before contacting the consumer.<\/p>\n Finally, the FCC listed exemptions to robocalls and robotexts. These exemptions involve calls and texts alerting consumers to \u201curgent circumstances\u201d, such as possible fraud with their bank accounts, alerts about important medication refills, or other financial or healthcare calls. These types of calls or messages are permitted without prior consent. However, calls related to marketing or debt collection do not fall under the narrow exemption category, and consumers retain the right to opt out of the exempt calls or texts.<\/p>\n This ruling will make it easier for people to bring lawsuits against companies who do not comply with the strict requirements of the law. We are currently litigating TCPA lawsuits against companies such as American Eagle for these violations. For more information, please call us at (212) 300-0375 for a free consultation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On June 18, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (\u201cFCC\u201d) strengthened the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (\u201cTCPA\u201d) by adopting a proposal that protects consumers from receiving robocalls and spam texts if consumers do not first give their consent. This action stemmed from thousands of consumer complaints made to the FCC regarding robocalls and robotexts. The FCC receives more consumer complaints regarding unwanted calls than any other category of complaints. In 2014, there were over 215,000 complaints to the FCC. In this …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment-law"],"yoast_head":"\n