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Trying to keep abreast of all the changes and permutations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is like playing chess with the FCC (News - Alert): Just when you think you have it figured out, you discover they’re three steps ahead of you.

And that might be how the folks at AmericanWest Advertising are feeling these days. The company recently got slapped with an $18,000 fine for four alleged TCPA violations.

According to a blog by attorney Steven Augustino on the Association of Corporate Counsel website, AmericanWest was cited for allegedly delivering four unsolicited, pre-recorded advertising messages to consumers in March 2010, telling them that they had won vacation packages. As such, the FCC issued a forfeiture order against the company.

“The Forfeiture Order confirms a penalty proposed against the company in a 2011 Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL), to which, according to the Commission, AmericanWest never responded,” Augustino wrote.

“The Forfeiture Order affirms a finding that AmericanWest’s messages constituted advertising, even though the pre-recorded messages did not offer anything for sale,” Augustino noted. “In this instance, the recipients heard a message that they allegedly had won a free vacation package. The Commission noted in the NAL that according to the TCPA, ‘offers for free goods or services that are part of an overall marketing campaign to sell property, goods, or services’ also qualify as unsolicited advertisements and are ‘prohibited to residential telephone subscribers, if not otherwise exempted.’”

The ruling hits AmericanWest with a $4,500 charge for each alleged violation, “a rate that has been imposed in similar previous cases,” Augustino said.

The timing of the Forfeiture Order likely is motivated by the statute of limitations, the time within which it must initiate an action to collect an unpaid forfeiture.

“That provision requires the FCC … to commence an action to collect on a forfeiture within five years of when the violation occurred (not when the NAL was issued),” Augustino noted. “Because the calls that violated the TCPA occurred in March 2010, the FCC must commence an action to collect a forfeiture by March 2015 – just two months from now.”

So if your company was in possible TCPA violation in the past, you may not be out of the woods just yet.