You can sue telemarketers in small claims court under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and collect at least $500 for every illegal call or text, or $1,500 per call if the violation was knowing and willful. The TCPA lets you file on your own without a lawyer, and small claims court is built for exactly this kind of case. What separates a winning claim from a dismissed one is documentation, correctly identifying the company, and following your court’s procedural rules from filing through collection.
Which Calls You Can Sue Over
The TCPA gives individuals a private right of action in three main situations. Knowing which one fits your calls shapes your complaint and your evidence.
Robocalls and Robotexts Without Written Consent
It is illegal to use an autodialer or a prerecorded or artificial voice to call or text your cell phone without your prior express consent. For telemarketing specifically, that consent has to be in writing. Each violating call or text is worth $500 in statutory damages, tripled to $1,500 if you can show the caller knew what it was doing was illegal.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 U.S. Code 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
One caveat matters here. In 2021 the Supreme Court held that an “automatic telephone dialing system” has to use a random or sequential number generator to store or produce numbers. A system that just runs down a preloaded list does not qualify.2Justia Law. Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. (2021) If the call played a recorded message or used an artificial voice, you are still covered, because the prerecorded-voice rule is separate from the autodialer rule.
Calls to Numbers on the Do Not Call Registry
The second path is the National Do Not Call Registry. Once your number has been on the registry for 31 days, a telemarketer that calls you to sell something is violating the rules.3Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs Damages run up to $500 per call, with the same treble multiplier available for knowing violations.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 U.S. Code 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
There is a threshold worth knowing before you file: to bring a private suit under the Do Not Call provision, you need to have received more than one call from the same company within a 12-month period. A single call, standing alone, does not support this kind of claim. The company can also raise a defense that it had reasonable procedures in place to prevent the call and it slipped through anyway.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 U.S. Code 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
Calls After You Revoked Consent
If you once agreed to receive calls from a company and later changed your mind, FCC rules require the company to stop once you revoke consent by any reasonable method. Replying STOP to a text, telling the caller to stop, emailing the company, or submitting a request through its website all count. Every robocall or robotext after that is a violation.4Federal Communications Commission. TCPA Rules Revoking Consent for Unwanted Robocalls and Robotexts This is often the cleanest way to build a case, because you control the moment consent ends and everything after that date is documented.
Calls That Do Not Support a Lawsuit
Not every unwanted call is illegal. The FCC exempts several categories from the autodialer and prerecorded-voice restrictions, including political and research calls, calls from tax-exempt nonprofits, healthcare messages like appointment reminders and prescription notifications, fraud and security alerts from financial institutions, and short package delivery notifications.5Federal Register. Limits on Exempted Calls Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 These exemptions generally do not shield a caller from the Do Not Call rules when the call is actually a sales pitch.
How Long You Have to File
The TCPA has no built-in statute of limitations, so the federal catch-all of four years applies. You have four years from the date of each call to sue over it. Calls older than that drop out of your claim, but there is no advantage to rushing to file after one or two calls. Many people wait until they have a documented pattern, which strengthens the case and increases total damages.
Document Every Call
Evidence is almost the whole case. Start a log the moment you decide to pursue this. For each call, record the date, time, the number on your caller ID, and a short note about what happened. Was there a prerecorded voice? Did someone try to sell you something? Did you tell them to stop? Screenshot your phone’s call history. Save every voicemail. Screenshot every text. Each entry is a potential $500 line item, so treat the log the way you would treat receipts for a tax audit.
If you plan to record any calls, check your state’s law first. Some states require only one party (you) to consent to a recording. Others require every party on the line to consent, and recording without telling the caller in those states can create legal exposure for you and can keep the recording out of evidence. A quick check before you press record is worth the minute it takes.
Identify the Company Behind the Calls
You cannot sue a phone number. You need a legal name and an address. Federal rules require telemarketers making outbound sales calls to identify the seller and the purpose of the call.6eCFR. 16 CFR Part 310 – Telemarketing Sales Rule When you answer, listen for the company name and write it down. Keep the caller talking if you can. Ask who they work for and where the business is located.
Once you have a name, search the business registry on the Secretary of State’s website for the state where the company is located. You are looking for two things: the exact legal name, which may not match what the caller said on the phone, and the registered agent, meaning the person designated to accept legal papers. You will serve the registered agent, so both the name and the address matter.
Spoofed numbers make identification harder. If a call sent you to a website, the site’s registration information can point to the company. If you were told to press a button to speak with someone, staying on the line and asking questions can yield a name. Overseas callers with no U.S. presence are usually not worth pursuing in small claims court because service and collection become impractical.
Confirm Your Do Not Call Registration
If any part of your case rests on Do Not Call violations, you need to prove your number was on the registry when the calls came in. Check your registration at DoNotCall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222 from the number in question. If you are not registered, do it now. Registration is free, the number appears on the list the next day, and callers have 31 days to update their lists before further calls become actionable.3Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs
Check Your Court’s Dollar Limit
Small claims courts cap the amount you can recover, and the caps vary widely. Across states the range runs from about $2,500 up to $25,000, with most courts falling between $5,000 and $10,000. Look up your local court’s ceiling before filing. It tells you how many violations you can bundle into one case. Ten calls at $500 each is $5,000. A handful of willful violations at $1,500 each can hit that cap quickly.
If your total damages exceed the small claims limit, you can either reduce your claim to fit inside the cap and give up the excess, or file in a higher court where an attorney usually makes sense. Most people handling this on their own accept the cap and stay in small claims.
File the Complaint
The form goes by different names in different jurisdictions. Some courts call it a Complaint, others a Statement of Claim. You can usually download it from the court’s website or pick it up at the clerk’s office. It asks for your name and address, the defendant’s legal name and the registered agent’s address, a short description of the claim, and the dollar amount you want.
Keep the description specific and short. List each call by date and time. Say whether it was a prerecorded message, an autodialed call, or a call to a number on the Do Not Call Registry. Identify the TCPA provision each call violated. Then show your math: number of qualifying calls times $500, or $1,500 per call if you are alleging knowing and willful violations.
Filing fees vary by court but usually run somewhere between $30 and $100. File the original, and bring at least two copies: one for your records and one for the defendant.
Serve the Defendant
After filing you have to formally deliver the papers to the defendant. This step, service of process, has specific rules that vary by jurisdiction, and getting it wrong can kill your case. Common methods are certified mail with return receipt requested, a sheriff’s deputy, or a private process server delivering the documents to the registered agent. Service fees typically run $20 to $75.
A lot of telemarketers are in a different state from where you live. That usually does not stop you from suing at home. State long-arm statutes let local courts reach out-of-state defendants that direct activity into the state, and a company that called your phone in your home state has generally done exactly that. Serve the registered agent using whatever method your court permits for out-of-state defendants, which frequently includes certified mail.
The Hearing
Organize your evidence before the court date so a judge can follow it in a few minutes. A binder with tabbed sections works: call log, screenshots of your phone history, saved voicemails or texts, proof of Do Not Call registration, and any documents identifying the company. Prepare a short spoken summary covering who called, how many times, what was on the calls, and which TCPA provision each call violated.
You present first. Walk the judge through the evidence in order. Small claims judges see a lot of cases in a day, and clarity beats theater every time. The defendant then responds. Common defenses include claiming you consented, blaming a third-party caller the defendant says it did not control, or arguing that reasonable procedures were in place. The judge may rule from the bench or send the decision by mail.
If the defendant does not show up, most courts will enter a default judgment. You still have to put on enough evidence to establish the claim, but without opposition the bar is lower. Defaults are common in these cases because many telemarketers decide it costs less to ignore a small claims suit than to defend one. That calculation changes when the collection phase starts.
Collect the Judgment
Winning is not the same as getting paid. If the defendant does not pay voluntarily, you use the court’s collection tools. The specifics vary by state, but the standard mechanisms include:
- An information subpoena, which forces the company or a third party like its bank to disclose where assets are held. This is usually the first step when you do not already know.
- A bank account levy, using a writ of execution to have a sheriff or marshal seize funds once you know where the company banks.
- A judgment lien against property the company owns, which prevents a sale or refinance until your judgment is paid.
- Garnishment of business receivables or, if the defendant is an individual, wages, where state law allows it.
Collection is where many plaintiffs quit, and telemarketers count on that. Getting a writ and following through on a levy takes work, but it turns the paper judgment into money. Court fees for these tools are small, often a few dollars up to about $50, and are frequently recoverable from the defendant.
Taxes on What You Collect
TCPA statutory damages are taxable income. The IRS treats lawsuit proceeds as gross income unless they were received for personal physical injury or physical sickness, and damages for illegal phone calls do not qualify for that exception.7Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments If you collect $3,000 on a TCPA judgment, report it as income. For most people the math still works out well, but it belongs in the calculation before you file.