CONTENTS
What the letter is claimingThe first 48 hoursPull the evidence from the dialerWhere consent claims are won and lostThe recording is the evidence- Stop contacting the number today. A call after notice is the easiest way to turn $500 into $1,500.
- Preserve everything. Deleting records after you've been put on notice is spoliation, and courts treat it harshly.
- Don't answer the letter yourself. Get TCPA counsel, tell your insurer, and tell the lead vendor that sold you the number.
- Pull the evidence for that number: call log, recording, consent record, lead source, DNC scrubs, opt-out history. The recording is usually the only thing that shows what was actually said.
A TCPA demand letter is a letter from a consumer, or more often their lawyer, claiming your calls or texts broke the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and asking you to pay to make it go away. It usually names a phone number, lists some calls with dates and times, and does the arithmetic at $500 to $1,500 per call.
Most floors get one eventually. WebRecon counted 2,810 TCPA lawsuits filed in 2025, and TCPA class actions roughly doubled in the first nine months of the year against 2024: 1,636 against 800. Many of those suits started as a letter.
What you do in the first two days decides most of what comes after. This page is the order of operations, written for the person on the floor who has to find the evidence, before the lawyers take over the conversation.
Operational guidance, not legal advice. A demand letter is a legal matter: bring in TCPA counsel early.
What the letter is claiming
Demand letters almost always rest on one or more of five claims. Knowing which one you're facing tells you which record matters.
| The claim | What it alleges | The record that answers it |
|---|---|---|
| No consent | You autodialed, texted or used a prerecorded or AI voice without the consent the TCPA requires | The consent record and lead source for that number |
| Do Not Call | The number was on the National DNC Registry, or had asked you to stop | Your registry scrub log and internal DNC list |
| Ignored opt-out | They said "stop" and you kept calling | The recording of the call where they said it, and your suppression log |
| Quiet hours | You called or texted before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. their time | Dialer call log with timestamps and the lead's location |
| Prerecorded or AI voice | A recorded or AI-generated voice played without consent | The recording, and the campaign's configuration |
The numbers in the letter come from the statute: 47 U.S.C. 227 allows $500 per violating call, and up to $1,500 if the violation was willful or knowing. Claims can reach back four years. Twenty calls is $10,000 on paper and $30,000 if they can argue willfulness, before anyone mentions a class.
The first 48 hours
1. Stop contacting the number. Put it on your internal Do Not Call list now, across every campaign and every dialer. A call or text after the letter arrives looks like a decision, and decisions are what make a violation willful.
2. Preserve everything. Send a written hold to whoever runs the dialer, the CRM and the lead intake: nothing tied to that number gets deleted, archived or overwritten. That includes recordings on a rolling deletion schedule. Guides written for defendants are blunt about this: deleting records after a demand arrives is spoliation, and a court can tell a jury to assume the deleted record would have hurt you.
3. Don't reply yourself. A friendly email explaining that "our vendor handles consent" is an admission someone will quote back to you. Send the letter to TCPA counsel, and let them respond.
4. Tell your insurer. Coverage for TCPA claims is patchy: modern general liability policies are usually drafted to avoid covering TCPA class actions, and many now carry an express TCPA exclusion. Notice deadlines apply either way, and late notice can lose coverage you did have.
5. Tell the lead vendor. If you bought the lead, your contract probably makes the vendor responsible for consent and requires you to notify them of claims. Do it in writing, and ask for their consent record for that number the same day, before their retention schedule removes it.
Pull the evidence from the dialer
Everything the claim turns on is already in your systems. Pull it into one folder for counsel, for every call to the number in the letter.
- The call log. Every attempt and connection: date, time, duration, campaign, agent, caller ID shown, and how the call ended. On VICIdial that's the call log and the lead's history, and the list the lead came from.
- The recordings. Every connected call. Listen to them before anyone else does. They show whether the consumer agreed to anything, whether disclosures were given, and whether anyone said "stop."
- The consent record. The form submission, its date, the page it came from, and any certificate your lead vendor attached. Consent belongs to the person who gave it, so check the date against when the number may have changed hands.
- The DNC scrubs. The registry data date used for each campaign that dialed the number, and the internal DNC list history for it.
- The opt-out trail. When, if ever, the number was suppressed, and by whom.
- The lead's location. ZIP code or address, if you have it, for any quiet-hours claim.
Then read the letter against what you found. Letters are drafted from the consumer's memory and a screenshot of their call log, and they're often wrong about dates, counts, or which company called. A letter claiming 30 calls when your log shows 4 attempts and 1 connection is a different conversation.
Where consent claims are won and lost
Consent is the center of most letters, and the standard isn't the same everywhere. Under FCC rules, autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing to a cell phone needs prior express written consent. In the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the court held in Bradford v. Sovereign Pest Control (February 2026) that the statute requires prior express consent for prerecorded calls, without the written requirement. Your lawyer will know which standard your case sits under. Your job is to hand them the record either way.
The weak spot is usually the gap between the form and the call. A form shows someone agreed to be contacted. It doesn't show what happened on the call: whether your agent confirmed the person, said who they were calling for, or kept going after "I never signed up for this." Only the recording shows that.
The recording is the evidence
A recording answers most of the claims in the table. It also has a weakness every plaintiff's lawyer knows: it's a file on your server, and nothing in it proves it hasn't been edited since.
A Klariqo Call Record closes that gap for every recorded VICIdial call. Each call's transcript is sealed with a digital signature and a government-grade timestamp from DigiCert, the same RFC 3161 standard the US government's NIST names in its federal security guidance. We couldn't backdate one even if we wanted to, because the timestamp is DigiCert's signature, not ours. Change one word and the check fails, which you can watch happen, and anyone, including opposing counsel, can check a record at verify.klariqo.com without an account.
The best time to have that record is before the letter arrives. Our TCPA compliance checklist covers the rules that keep letters from arriving in the first place.
Connect VICIdial and get your first 10,000 call records free →
Last updated 2026-09-09 by Ansh Deb, Founder & CEO of Klariqo. Sources: 47 U.S.C. 227 · WebRecon 2025 year-end via Shipkevich PLLC · Troutman Amin on 2025 class actions · Nixon Peabody on Bradford v. Sovereign Pest Control · Mintz on TCPA insurance coverage
Questions people ask
What is a TCPA demand letter?
A letter from a consumer or their lawyer claiming your calls or texts violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, usually listing the calls and asking for a payment to settle before a lawsuit is filed.
Should I ignore a TCPA demand letter?
No. Ignoring it doesn't stop the clock, and the lawsuit that follows is more expensive than the letter. Stop contacting the number, preserve your records, and send the letter to TCPA counsel.
How much is a TCPA violation worth?
$500 per violating call or text under 47 U.S.C. 227, and up to $1,500 per call if a court finds the violation willful or knowing.
How far back can a TCPA claim go?
Four years from the call, under the federal four-year limitations period courts apply to the TCPA. Keep records at least that long.
Can I keep calling someone who sent a demand letter?
No. Add the number to your internal Do Not Call list across every campaign. Contact after notice helps the other side argue the violation was willful.
Is my lead vendor responsible?
Often, under your contract, but the claim is made against you. Notify the vendor in writing, ask for their consent record for the number immediately, and let counsel handle the indemnity.
What evidence matters most?
The consent record and the call recording. The consent record shows the person agreed to be contacted. The recording shows what happened on the call, including any disclosure or request to stop.
