Marketers can make Business-to-Business (B2B) calls/texts using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) provided they have proper consent. For marketing purposes, you must have express written consent. The written consent may be an e-signature or button press, but it must include the following disclosures:

Businesses that conduct Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing should be aware of the following vulnerabilities specific to their manner of business:

Dual Purpose (Mixed Business & Personal Use) Lines
B2B marketers should be checking their data against state and federal consumer Do Not Call (DNC) lists to reduce the risk of calling or texting dual purpose phone lines.

The main provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) are as follows:

Calling Time Restrictions
Companies can contact residential consumers only between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM (recipient’s time zone).

Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems (ATDS)
The TCPA restricts autodialed marketing calls and texts to cell phones and other devices where the recipient might be charged for the call without written consent, and non-marketing autodialed calls without prior express consent.

Litigators will often target companies with particular, perceived vulnerabilities. Among the sorts of targets for unscrupulous litigators are the following:

Companies with Deep Pockets
Large companies are often targets of large Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) lawsuits, resulting in very large payouts.

Companies with a History of TCPA Lawsuits
Once a company has paid out a large settlement or judgment for TCPA violations, it can attract more litigators, like sharks drawn to blood in the water.

Unscrupulous Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigators and professional plaintiffs often make use of a deep bag of tricks to induce costly TCPA violations. Some of their more frequent and damaging techniques are as follows:

Dual-Purpose Phone Lines
Sometimes referred to as “mixed-use” lines. Litigators will use one phone number for both business and personal purposes, potentially entrapping marketers who believe they are making calls to a business line when, in fact, it is a personal line for TCPA purposes.

Yes. Moreover, recent court decisions have generally held that consumers can revoke their consent by any reasonable means. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) does not offer explicit guidance on revocation of consent, but it is best practice to recognize and honor all consent revocation requests immediately.

There is no time limit or expiration date on consent. However, consent is tied to the called party, not the phone number. So if a number is reassigned to a new person, whatever consent you may have had for that number is no longer valid. Also, consumers can revoke their consent at any time and by any means.

As defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), prior express written consent is a written agreement between the caller and the receiver of the call that clearly authorizes the caller to deliver “advertisements or telemarketing messages using an automatic telephone dialing system [(ATDS)]or an artificial pre-recorded voice.” This type of consent must specify the phone number to be called and must also include the receiver’s written or electronic signature, which may be a signed piece of paper, or simply a button press affirming the agreement.