The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has not been updated in over 30 years. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been asked by Congress to take “decisive action in addressing the escalating issue of fraudulent and scam text messages that target American consumers.” The TCPA restricts the hours in which telemarketers can call, prevents businesses from using prerecorded messages when calling homes, and using auto dialers for call and texts. It also requires companies to obtain consent for marketing text messages and maintain a registry of consumers who have opted out of receiving such marketing calls.

Violators of the TCPA can be fined up to $500 for each violation, and if the plaintiff can prove the violation was willful, they may seek to triple that to $1,500 per violation.

However, the FCC’s response was that, while it continues to strengthen its rules on text message scams, it would likely need to amend the TCPA further to fully enforce the rule and stop these messages before they reach consumers.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel stated in her response to the call to action, “In the years since the passage of this legislation, a lot has changed in the way we communicate and the way bad actors use our connections for fraudulent schemes. For this reason, I welcome discussion of any new legislative proposals you may have on this topic.”

To date, the FCC has required carriers to block any texts from invalid or unused numbers due to the high likelihood that the number is being used for fraud and has also required carriers to block texts coming from numbers that the FBI has determined to be a source of illegal texts.

While these steps are moving towards more protections for consumers, it seems like we need legislators to focus on more aggressive updates to a 30-year-old law focused on a technology that has exponentially changed over that time.

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