Glossary
What Is a TCPA Litigator?
What is a TCPA litigator?
Short answerA TCPA litigator is a person who repeatedly files Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits against businesses that call or text them. Because the TCPA awards statutory damages of up to $1,500 per violation with no cap and no need to prove actual loss, a small population files claims as a revenue stream. Their numbers are valid, active mobiles that pass every technical validation check.
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The TCPA's design creates the incentive. A private right of action, fixed statutory damages, and no requirement to prove any actual loss means a plaintiff needs only to establish that you called and that you lacked consent. That is a low bar, and a predictable one.
How serial filers operate
Practitioners who defend these claims describe a consistent pattern:
- Seeding. Numbers are deliberately entered into lead-generation forms, quote comparison sites and contest entries, so they enter the lead economy and get resold.
- Multiple lines. Maintaining many numbers multiplies the opportunities, and VoIP makes lines cheap to acquire.
- Meticulous records. Every call is logged with time, caller ID and content -- often better documented than the caller's own consent records.
- Consent laundering via reassignment. Compliance firms have reported arrangements where consent is given on a number that then changes hands, so the person receiving the calls is not the person who consented -- defeating the consent on file.
That last one is worth sitting with, because it defeats a caller who did everything right at collection time. Your consent record is genuine; it is simply no longer attached to the person answering. See reassigned numbers.
If one has already sent you a demand letter, see what to do with a TCPA demand letter.
What one missed number costs
Statutory damages depend on the claim. An autodialed or prerecorded call or text made without the required consent is $500 per violation under § 227(b), or actual loss if greater. A Do Not Call claim under § 227(c)(5) is up to $500 per violation, and needs more than one call to the number within 12 months. A court may raise either to up to $1,500 where it finds the conduct willful or knowing. There is no cap on the aggregate, and defence costs arrive whether or not you ultimately pay damages. TCPA lawsuits covers both claims and who files them; TCPA violations and fines works through the arithmetic.
The arithmetic
Scrubbing a 5,000-number list costs $880 (rows past 2,000 are $0.16). A single violation a court finds willful can reach $1,500 -- more than the cost of screening the whole list. A serial filer who documents a campaign of repeat contacts turns one number into a five-figure claim.
Where the data comes from
Litigator databases are built from public court filings -- federal and state TCPA complaints name plaintiffs and, in many cases, the numbers at issue. Vendors aggregate these, add known plaintiff-firm client lists, and update as new suits are filed.
Coverage is necessarily imperfect. A first-time filer is by definition not yet in any database, so a litigator scrub reduces exposure rather than eliminating it. It is worth being clear-eyed about that: no vendor, including us, can promise a list holds no litigators.
Quick check: what catches a serial filer?
Pick an answer to see whether it is right, and why.
Running the check
NumberBroom bundles the litigator check with carrier-level validation in a single pass at $0.20 per number, $5 minimum, no subscription. Its check is wider than TCPA filers alone: it flags numbers tied to TCPA, FDCPA, FCRA and CFPB suits, and a match does not say which law the suit was under. Matches are removed from the output file and counted, and each job gets a dated Record of compliance screening showing what was submitted, screened and removed, so you can later show the list was screened before any dial -- which is materially stronger than asserting that it would have been.
Check a single number with the free carrier lookup, or see pricing for bulk lists.
Frequently asked questions
Is a litigator the same as a lawyer?
In general usage, a litigator is a lawyer who handles court cases rather than transactional work. In the TCPA context the phrase means something different: a serial litigator is a consumer -- sometimes but not usually an attorney -- who repeatedly brings TCPA claims. Many work with a small number of specialist plaintiff firms.
Are TCPA litigators on the Do Not Call Registry?
Frequently not, and that is the trap. Registering on the National Do Not Call Registry would reduce the calls they receive, which is the opposite of what they want. A DNC-only scrub therefore misses them entirely -- the two checks are not substitutes.
How do you identify a litigator's number?
Not by inspection. Their numbers are ordinary active mobile lines that return clean results for line type, carrier and deliverability. The only practical method is comparing your list against a database compiled from court filings -- public records of who has sued, and on which numbers.
What is a litigator scrub?
A litigator scrub compares every number on your calling list against a court-sourced database of known serial TCPA filers, and removes or flags the matches before your dialler runs. It is usually sold either as a standalone subscription or bundled into broader phone number scrubbing. Run over a whole file at once it is called a batch litigator scrub.