- Jared Hartman, Esq.
- Posted on April 11, 2014
Receiving blast text messages from a company trying to solicit you to sign up for their services, or to enter a contest, or to receive some type of discount or coupon? Then you may be entitled to compensation for a violation of your privacy rights!!
Many people don’t realize that the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) not only protects people from unwanted robo-calls to your cell phone, but it also protects people from unwanted text messages as well!
As you can tell from reading our other blogs on the TCPA, it is a federal law that allows a person to recover $500-$1500 per violation for receiving calls to a cell phone, without prior express consent and without emergency purposes, if the call is placed with either an auto-dialer and/or with pre-recorded or artificial voice messages.
In order to keep up with the changing state of the times when most people utilize text messaging as a quick and easy way to communicate, business and telemarketers have tried to change their “auto blast” tactics to text messaging. The courts and the FCC have specifically stated that unsolicited text messages also constitute a “call” for purposes of the TCPA, because it is a method of trying to communicate with the phone subscriber without prior express consent and without emergency purposes.
For instance, in Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 569 F.3d 946 (9th Cir.2009) the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal held that text messaging is a form of communication used primarily between telephones and is therefore consistent with the definition of a “call”. Further, in its opinion from February of 2012, the FCC specifically stated “The Commission has concluded that the prohibition encompasses both voice and text calls, including short message service (SMS) calls, if the prerecorded call is made to a telephone number assigned to such service.”
BE CAREFUL, though, when you opt in and opt out for text messages. If you send a text to a company to “opt in”, or to receive a discount for their services, or to enter a contest, you may have inadvertently given consent to receive a blast of text messages that you didn’t really want. After you “opt out” by texting back with “STOP”, they are allowed to send you one final confirming text message to make sure you actually meant to opt out. Any further messages beyond that one final confirming message is a violation.
Contact us today to schedule a free confidential consultation to discuss your rights!