A Primer On TCPA Consent Language

More and more businesses are engaging potential customers via telemarketing. With this comes the growing risk of contacting consumers who have not provided proper TCPA consent. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") protects consumers against the receipt of certain unsolicited telemarketing calls and text messages. A business that violates TCPA regulations faces fines of up to $1,500 per unauthorized call or text. These violations can get extremely expensive in the case of class actions, which often involve multiple alleged violations against thousands of consumers.

TCPA Express Written Consent

One TCPA requirement that businesses often misinterpret is the need to collect prior express written consent from consumers. Informational and debt collection calls only require prior express consent. However, telemarketers are held to a more stringent standard of TCPA consent - prior express written consent. As defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),