If a recorded voice keeps calling your phone, federal law generally bars that kind of call to a cell phone, and bars it to a home line in many cases, unless you agreed to it beforehand. You can withdraw that agreement in any reasonable way. The caller then has up to ten business days to stop.
If you are dealing with a stream of recorded calls, you probably are not looking for a law lecture. You want to know whether the calls were allowed in the first place, whether saying "stop" or pressing a button counted, and whether anything can be done once the calls keep coming anyway. This page walks through the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the FCC's rules under it, how consent and revocation work, what the law makes potentially available, and how the official reporting channels operate.
What the TCPA Prohibits: The Prerecorded Voice Rule
The core rule sits in 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A). It makes it unlawful "to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice" to an emergency line, to a guest or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home or similar place, or to a number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service or "any service for which the called party is charged for the call."
In plain terms, an artificial or prerecorded voice is a message played from a recording or generated by a machine, rather than a live person talking to you. An automatic telephone dialing system, under 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(1), is "equipment which has the capacity (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers." The Supreme Court read that definition in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, No. 19-511 (April 1, 2021). For a recorded call to your cell phone, though, the dialing equipment is beside the point: the recorded voice alone brings the call within the rule.
If the calls are reaching your home landline, a different rule applies. Under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(B), a call to a residential line "using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party" is generally unlawful, with exceptions including emergency calls and calls the FCC exempts by rule or order.
You may see an exception in the statute's text for calls to collect debts owed to the United States. For cell phones, that exception no longer applies: the Supreme Court held it invalid and severed it in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, No. 19-631 (July 6, 2020).
Whether the calls you are getting cross these lines comes down to three things: the type of line, what the message said and whether you had given consent.
Prior Express Consent: What It Means and When It Applies
Most of these situations turn on consent. Prior express consent means permission you gave before the call came, not agreement pieced together afterward. A caller cannot fix a missing permission later.
The FCC's regulation, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a), sets two levels of consent. For an ordinary informational call to a cell phone, prior express consent is the standard. For a call that "includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing," the regulation requires "prior express written consent," with narrow exceptions including calls by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit and certain health care messages.
The FCC's guide to unwanted robocalls and texts puts it this way. A caller must obtain "your prior written consent – on paper or through electronic means, including website forms or a telephone keypress – before they make a prerecorded telemarketing call to your home or wireless phone number." For autodialed or prerecorded calls or texts to a wireless number, the caller must obtain "oral or written consent."
Some calls to a home line need no consent at all, though they come with limits. A prerecorded call to your home line that is not made for a commercial purpose, or is commercial but not telemarketing, generally needs no consent if the caller makes no more than three calls within any consecutive 30-day period and honors opt-out requests.
Under the statute's own words, consent belongs to the called party. Who gave consent, whether it was valid and which kind of call it covered are often the questions at the center of a dispute.
How You May Revoke Consent
Revoking consent simply means taking back permission you once gave. The rule is in 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(10). You "may revoke prior express consent, including prior express written consent," by "using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender."
Certain methods count as reasonable automatically: an automated or key-press opt-out on the call; replying "stop," "quit," "end," "revoke," "opt out," "cancel" or "unsubscribe" to a text; or using a website or telephone number the caller set up for opt-outs. If you use one of these, "that consent is considered definitively revoked." If you reply to a text in your own words, that still counts "if a reasonable person would understand those words to have conveyed a request to revoke consent."
Once you have asked, the clock starts. Revocation requests made in any reasonable manner "must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request." And as the rule currently reads, covered callers "may not designate an exclusive means to request revocation of consent," so a caller cannot insist that you use only its preferred channel.
The FCC's rules on consent and revocation have changed more than once in recent years; this section describes them as the regulation currently reads. If you replied STOP and kept hearing the same recording, the dates of each request and each later call can matter, and so can the exact wording and channel you used.
FTC Rules on Prerecorded Telemarketing Calls
A second federal framework also reaches sales robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule is separate from the TCPA. The two overlap in places, but each has its own enforcement path, and one framework's remedies do not carry over to the other.
The FTC's own Do Not Call Registry FAQs describe the robocall standard this way: "If a robocall — a call that plays a recorded message — is selling something, it's illegal unless the company trying to sell you something has written permission, directly from you, to call you that way." The same page notes that a robocall that is "purely informational," such as a cable company confirming an appointment, is treated differently.
The FTC page also says that being on the Registry does not change this analysis. An unauthorized sales robocall is illegal "whether your number is on the Registry or not." It describes reporting such a call to the FTC, and says it suggests hanging up rather than pressing buttons, because doing so "might lead to more unwanted calls."
What the TCPA Makes Potentially Available to Consumers
The statute lets individuals go to court and sets what a court may award. Under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3), a person or entity may, "if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State," bring an action in an appropriate court of that State. That action may seek to enjoin the violation, to recover "for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater," or both. If the court finds the defendant "willfully or knowingly" violated the subsection or its regulations, "the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times" that amount. This action covers the prerecorded voice and autodialer rules.
The do-not-call rules carry their own, separate action under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5). It is open to "a person who has received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity" in violation of those regulations, allowing actual monetary loss "or to receive up to $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater." It has an affirmative defense that the other action lacks: a defendant may show it "established and implemented, with due care, reasonable practices and procedures" to prevent such calls. The court may likewise increase the award to not more than 3 times for willful or knowing violations.
These amounts are what the statute allows a court to award, not what any particular person will receive; whether a claim exists turns on the details of the calls. A broader look at consumer lawsuits under federal law covers how these actions compare.
How to Report an Unwanted Prerecorded Call
Reporting runs through two federal agencies, and each describes its own process. Neither one resolves your individual dispute with a caller.
The FCC. According to the FCC's consumer guide, you can report illegal calls or texts to the FCC by choosing the "unwanted calls" category and noting whether your number is being spoofed, blocked or mislabeled. The FCC "doesn't resolve individual complaints but uses them to guide policy and possible enforcement," and a complaint "may also be shared with other enforcement agencies."
The FTC. The FTC's FAQs say that if you "didn't lose money and just want[s] to report a call," you can use the streamlined form at DoNotCall.gov. If you lost money or have information about the caller, the FTC points to ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC says it "can't respond to each" report, but analyzes them to find illegal callers.
The National Do Not Call Registry. Registration is free and never expires, according to the FTC, and it "can take up to 31 days for sales calls to stop." The Registry does not block calls, and it does not stop every call. The FTC says it stops sales calls "from real companies that follow the law," and that companies may still call if you recently did business with them or gave written permission. The FCC lists other permitted calls, including some to landlines from tax-exempt nonprofits and calls about school closings or flight information.
Recorded calls about a debt raise separate questions, addressed in the page on a debt collector who keeps calling.
If You'd Like a Consumer Rights Case Review
Prerecorded call questions often come down to small details. Was the number a cell phone or a home line? Was the message a sales pitch or a reminder? When was permission given, and when was it withdrawn? A conversation about calls like these can cover the caller's name and number, what the recordings said, the dates and counts of the calls, any STOP replies or opt-out requests and when they were sent, and any call logs or screenshots kept. This page explains the federal rules. It does not address debt collection lawsuits or matters outside calls and texts, and the consumer law FAQ gathers related topics.
To discuss calls like these with an attorney, a reader may request a consumer rights case review through Federal Consumer Rights.
