FCC RULES ON TCPA ISSUES RELATED TO CELL PHONES

On January 4, 2008, the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling, at the request of the ACA and as supported

by a May 2006 DBA Comment, related to autodialed calls and prerecorded messages to cell phones.

In the Declaratory Ruling, the FCC ruled that autodialed and prerecorded calls may be made to cell

phones only after “prior express consent” is provided to the creditor by the consumer as provided

“during the transaction that resulted in the debt owed”.

• Creditors and third debt collectors bear the responsibility of showing “prior express consent”.
  
  
• Those calls made with an autodialer to a wireless caller can only be made to the consumer whom
  has given the creditor their wireless number.  However, the FCC ruled that calls placed solely for the purposes of debt collection are not telephone solicitations and do not constitute telemarketing.
  
  
• The FCC denied ACA’s Petition which had asked for a ruling that a “predictive dialer” was not an automatic dialer and reiterated that creditors and debt collectors can only use predictive dialers to call wireless phones provided the wireless phone number was provided by the subscriber in connection with the existing debt.
  
  
• The FCC in its ruling did not define “during the transaction”.
  
  For a link to the FCC Ruling, please click here.
  
  
  This Alert is in no way intended to be legal advice and members are encouraged to consult with counsel of their choice.