Still Getting Telemarketing Calls After Joining the Do Not Call Registry?

A lot of people signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry years ago, noticed the calls slow down, and then watched them come back. The natural assumption is that the registry never had any force. It does. The difference between a registry that works and one that doesn't is usually whether anyone holds the callers to it.

The Federal Trade Commission runs the registry, which has operated since 2003. Registration is free at donotcall.gov, it doesn't expire, and both landlines and cell phones can be listed. For consumers who want to bring their own claim, the relevant rules are the FCC's regulations under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

The rule and its exceptions

Under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(2), no one may make a telephone solicitation to a residential subscriber whose number is on the registry. A telephone solicitation is, roughly, a call encouraging you to buy goods, services, or property. Your registration takes effect 31 days after you sign up. It doesn't matter whether a person or a machine dialed the call.

Telemarketers who call registered numbers usually point to one of a few exceptions. If you gave the company written permission to call you, the registry doesn't block it (see § 64.1200(c)(2)(ii)). If you bought something from the company within the last eighteen months, or made an inquiry within the last three months, you have what the rules call an established business relationship, and the company may call despite your registration (see § 64.1200(f)(5)). Telling the company to stop ends that relationship for calling purposes. Calls from charities, political campaigns, and surveys that aren't selling anything generally aren't telephone solicitations at all.

Outright scam operations ignore all of this, of course. The exceptions matter when the caller is a real business that should know better.

This article is about phone calls. Whether marketing texts to a registered number support the same kind of claim is now disputed in the courts; see our article on spam texts.

When you can sue

The statute gives you a private right of action in 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5), with one important threshold: you must have received more than one call within a twelve-month period by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the rules. A single call is a violation, but it doesn't yet give you a claim. Once the threshold is met, you can recover up to $500 per violation, and the court may award up to three times that if it finds the violation was willful or knowing.

The statute also gives defendants a defense if they can show they established and follow reasonable practices to comply with the do-not-call rules. Companies that buy call lists without checking them against the registry often struggle to make that showing.

There's a second, separate set of obligations worth knowing about. Under § 64.1200(d), any company that telemarkets has to keep its own internal do-not-call list and honor your request to be put on it, whether or not you're on the national registry. A company that keeps calling after you've told it to stop has a problem under both rules.

If the calls keep coming

1. Confirm your number is registered at donotcall.gov. If it isn't, register it now.
2. Keep a log: date, time, the number that called, and what the caller said. Screenshots of your call history are fine.
3. Get the company's name if you can, and tell them clearly not to call again. Write down when you did.
4. Save any voicemails.
5. Consider filing complaints with the FTC and the FCC. They help enforcement, though they don't substitute for a private claim.

Two calls from the same company in a year, after you registered and with no exception that applies, is the point where it makes sense to have a lawyer look at it.