What would the world be without tradition?
Trite and uncertain, to say the least.
But every Halloween for 6 years now TCPAWorld has woken up to a scary tale of numbers and goblins to freak out even the strongest minds.
And this year, another GHASTLY story. Let us descend below TCPAWorld together and see what HORRORS lie benath.
Here at the gates we read a sign reminding us to abandon hope– as the TCPA has long been the RICHEST GOLDEN GOOSE of the plaintiff’s bar. With thousands of cases filed every year and hundreds of millions in settlement dollars flowing freely there is ALWAYS a target on your back here. You must ALWAYS live in fear.
Yet this year might be the SCARIEST year on record though.
First, according to WebRecon the bloodthirsty ghouls that file TCPA suits have done so at a startling clip this year. TCPA suit filings are UP 13.1% year over year!
And while that is already plenty horrifying, just over 60% of TCPA cases have been filed as class actions this year, that is also 10% higher than previous years and also means TCPA cases are ten times more likely to be filed as a class action than other cases!!!
*insert blood curdling scream here*
But we’ve barely begun our journey. Step through now into the dark hollow leading beneath the tombstones and let’s see what lies beneath.
A TCPA class action may look at FOUR years of calls made by a company and seek to make them PAY $500.00 to $1,500.00 per call. In many cases that means BILLIONS of dollars are on the line in these suits!
But this chamber of horrors gets far, far worse.
Venture deeper below the litigation CRYPT and see how legal doctrine long thought dead continues to animate MASSIVE liability for the living.
Your corporate form? It does not protect you here. Your earthly LLC vessel will not shield you as TCPA liability strikes straight for your SOUL– no need to pierce any corporate veil. Indeed, two individuals were just hit with over $500,000.00 in PERSONAL exposure in a suit involving just 200 phone calls!
But they got off lucky. Others have faced personal exposure in the millions!
And if that doesn’t chill your bones, when a regulator gets a hold of you NOT EVEN DEATH will provide refuge. The FTC recently pursued an alleged TCPA violator BEYOND THE GRAVE and sued his daughter to recover the millions allegedly owed.
Absolutely fiendish.
You cry out for mercy already, but this HORROR SHOW is just getting started.
We’ve only been talking about federal law. Now we brush past the spider webs and frozen air and descend into 49 separate levels of hell–with each state (other than heavenly Iowa) having its own separate mini-TCPA to grab at your ankles and scrape your knees as you run in fear through the suffocating darkness.
But there is no escape from this bramble patch you’ve wandered into. Some states regulate content. Others the use of technology. Others the number of calls or their time. These rules are a twisted knot that don’t align. And there is no single best practice that can be used to cut through all of them–so as you draw your sword to cut yourself free of one regulation another grabs your arm and another your neck.
Its all too dark to deal with.
And yet, rising before you in the pit of darkness you see something that defies your mind. More laws continue to rise–as if from eerie darkened graves–to haunt this netherworld as horrifying incomplete visages. Vague and malformed. Missing pieces. Created by lawmkaers who aren’t even lawyers!!!
*lightning crashes over the graveyard of bad laws*
“When will we learn to stop sending non-lawyers to Congress and state legislatures to make our laws?” You cry out. But it is too late for redemption now.
You turn at last to the final marker. And enter the deepest level of TCPAWorld damnation– the domain of the FCC’s NPRM.
Here you find the grandest elder demon that haunts the TCPAWorld– the NCLC.
Fueled directly by the dark powers of the TCPA itself, the NCLC takes millions from the Plaintiff’s bar while whispering darkly into the ear of the FCC–advocating to the Commission that the TCPA be expanded even while the NCLC draws millions from the TCPA itself.
And if it gets its way TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS in new TCPA exposure will instantly arise as the NCLC advocates for RETROACTIVE liability for billions of calls that have already been made– arguing that every call placed on a purchased lead for the last four years HAS ALWAYS BEEN ILLEGAL!!!!
*the darkness swirls and overtakes you*
No mortal mind can fathom this. And just as you slip out of consciousness and into the final darkness of the abyss, you look up and see a gleaming beam of light giving you hope…
Its R.E.A.C.H., all gilded in white and shining armor standing as an ephemeral guide offering you a hand to pull you out of the darkness.
R.E.A.C.H. has been working with the Commission–even on this very day and within this very hour– to shine a light here in TCPAWorld and help it emerge from the hellish landscape it has become.
R.E.A.C.H. lights the way to a sustainable marketing practices and a TCPAWorld that makes sense. You are grateful to its shining example, who delivers you once more out of the hellish world that lies beneath TCPAWorld and back to the safe surface, forever changed.
So we will end this haunted tale of woe ultimately end on a happy note or on a note of desperation for all? Only the FCC knows for sure.
But if you REALLY want to freak yourself out about the state of telecom law, be sure to WATCH IN HORROR as US Senators struggle to understand even the basics of robocal tracking.
This you can’t make up.
Happy Halloween TCPAWorld! Sleep tight. If you can…
🙂