TCPA

The TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 1991) is the US federal law governing automated calls and messages: auto-dialer use, artificial or prerecorded voice calls and texts to phones, quiet hours (before 8 AM and after 9 PM, local time). Consent is the keystone: "prior express written consent" is required for automated marketing communications, and damages run from $500 to $1,500 per violation.

For a local business, the TCPA reads as a map of zones to avoid rather than a prohibition: responding to a customer who called you is safe ground; unsolicited mass automation is the minefield. The nuance worth legal counsel: the exact consent boundary for an automatic text-back after an inbound call — common practice treats it as a response to the customer's initiative, prudence commands obtaining a clear opt-in as soon as the conversation extends. Since 2024, the FCC settled an adjacent point: an AI-generated voice broadcast automatically falls under the same regime.