Protecting the Rights of Consumers For Over 25 Years

On November 21, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission announced a declaratory ruling that holds that entities using ringless voicemail products must first obtain the consent of the consumer before using the product to place voicemails into consumers’ voicemail boxes. The ruling states that ringless voicemails are considered to be telephone calls as far as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act is concerned.  Since they necessarily record a message before it is inserted into the consumer's mailbox, they trigger the TCPA prohibition for calls that deploy a prerecorded or computer-generated voice message.   "In this Declaratory Ruling and Order, we find that 'ringless voicemail' to wireless phones requires consumer consent because it is a 'call' made using an artificial or prerecorded voice and thus is covered by section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)."

Contact us if you have received ringless voicemails without your prior consent.