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While the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has been around since 1991, recent cases have led to the FCC (News - Alert) going back to the drawing board to better define some of the misunderstood rulings under its jurisdiction.

Just recently, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that calls made to a residential line using an autodialer violate the TCPA, but only if the residential line service charges for incoming calls.

Such was the case in Lynn v Monarch Recovery Management, a debt collector, which enacted several collection calls to Lynn. Lynn had switched to a VoIP provider who charged $0.0149 per minute for incoming calls and a separate $0.0149 flat rate for each transmission of Caller ID data. Multiply this by the many times Monarch called Lynn, 37 times to be exact, and that’s one hefty bill. The kicker is the calls weren’t even for Lynn, rather a previous resident of his current home, the other for his brother. Despite Lynn’s effort to alert Monarch of their error and educating the organization that he was being charged for each call, Monarch still made three final calls.

This is where Lynn went the litigious route and sued Monarch for violating the TCPA, the Maryland Telephone Consumer Protection Act (MDTCPA), and the FDCPA.

Monarch tried to argue that it was not in violation of the TCPA because the calls were not made to a mobile line.

The basic premise of the TCPA is designed to, as the name states, protect the consumer who would be on the receiving end of marketing or soliciting phone calls. Many people know the “do not call” list, and it’s thanks to the TCPA that we have this.

The language of the TCPA extends beyond just cell numbers, and it states that “making any call…using any [ATDS] or an artificial or prerecorded voice…to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call” counts as a call. Ergo, the Judge ruled in favor of Lynn.

This aligns with the definition of VoIP, including mobile VoIP, so Monarch lost the suit.

Given that call centers, marketing firms and businesses rely on mobile VoIP and predictive dialers to reach out to their lead lists, maintaining compliance is key to avoiding hefty fines.