Federal law provides strong protections for consumers against unsolicited “robocalls.” These calls provide seemingly never-ending invasions of your privacy. The relevant federal statute is called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), and it’s found at 47 U.S.C § 227. Our North Carolina TCPA Attorneys handle cases dealing with harassing robocalls all over the state. We recently settled a case for over $100,000 for a Durham client who received daily harassment from a marketer.
TCPA Protections
Robocalls are typically harassing telephone calls made by debt collectors, marketers, political consultants, and other organizations where the recipient picks up his or her telephone only to hear a prerecorded message. That is, there is no human making the phone call, it’s made by a computer that autodials or “robodials” you, it just delivers you a prerecorded message. These calls can be extremely harassing, particularly if you are receiving multiple prerecorded calls every day from the same caller. Some of the worst examples of robocalls harassment involve debt collectors calling family members of a debtor when the family member has no responsibility to pay the debts of their relative.
While it protects against a number of unlawful communications, including junk faxes and spam text messages, one of its many provisions relates to robocalls and states that “it shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party . . .” There is a similar rule against robocalls to cell phones.
For each violation of the TCPA, the caller is liable for a statutory penalty of $500.00. So, for instance, if you receive 10 calls from the same company attempting to sell you some product, you can recover $5,000.00. Importantly, if it is found that the caller knowingly violated the TCPA by making the robocalls, they can be liable for up to $1,500.00 per violation. In this same situation, that would mean that you could recover up to $15,000.00.
North Carolina TCPA Attorneys Edward Maginnis and Karl Gwaltney handle TCPA claims across the State of North Carolina. Whether based upon robocalls, junk faxes, spam text messages, or any other unlawful communications, our attorneys can assist with your TCPA claim. We offer free consultations to all victims of robocalls and handle TCPA cases on a “contingency basis.” This means that you do not pay any attorneys’ fees unless and until we obtain a verdict or settlement on your behalf.
To discuss your TCPA robocalls claim, contact our firm at 919-526-0450. You may also send any questions or inquiries you have about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or any other consumer protections laws, through our contact page. The firm’s North Carolina TCPA Attorneys can assist with cases throughout North Carolina with three conveniently located offices in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Fayetteville.
