DNC Registry Fee Increases Show TCPA Damages Must Increase

Bidenomics is hitting ordinary Americans like myself hard. We are in the middle of a crashing economy and record-setting inflation that shows we will soon become the next Weimar Republic. Grocery and housing costs are out of control. Insurance is at an all-time high. We are on the brink of hyper-inflation. Despite these challenges, illegal telemarketing is as rampant as ever, with tele-scammers seeking to part working-class families from their increasingly worthless money every single day.

In 2007, Congress passed the Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act, which provides for periodic fee increases for telemarketers to access the Do Not Call Registry, critically indexed to inflation. The FTC just raised fees for access, to take effect next month.

But nobody is talking about the need for a TCPA Damages Extension Act, a proposal I just thought of today, which would allow for periodic increases to the statutory damages available to Plaintiffs under the TCPA. The critical need for such an increase is obvious. Five hundred dollars in 1991 is worth at least $1,168.42 today, if not more (that is, if you don’t trust the government’s official numbers). Illegal telemarketing is as rampant as ever. And if telemarketers need to pay costs to access the DNC Registry indexed to inflation, it just makes sense that they should also pay the same damages when they break it.

Writ your Congressmen. Let them know about this problem. Make this an amendment to the Do Not Disturb Act. Something needs to be don.