If a telemarketer calls a number listed on the National Do Not Call Registry, you can report the Do Not Call violation to the Federal Trade Commission at DoNotCall.gov, file a parallel complaint with the Federal Communications Commission at consumercomplaints.fcc.gov, and separately sue the caller in state court for $500 to $1,500 per illegal call. The agencies use your report to build enforcement cases against high-volume offenders; the lawsuit is how you personally recover money.
What to Write Down Before You File
The strength of a complaint depends almost entirely on the details you capture in the moment. Federal investigators use this information to link scattered calls to a single operation, and a small claims court judge will expect the same specifics if you sue.
Grab the following for every call or text:
- The exact date and approximate time the call came in.
- The number that appeared on your caller ID, even if you suspect it is spoofed. Investigators can often trace a call’s true origin through telecom providers using the displayed number.
- Any company name, product, or pitch the caller mentioned. This is what actually ties the call to a defendant.
- Whether you heard a live person, a recorded message, or received a text.
- The phone number of yours that was called, which should be the one listed on the registry.
If you have already told the company to stop calling, note the date you made that request. Continued calls after a stop request are a separate violation on top of the registry violation.
Filing a Complaint With the FTC
The FTC runs the registry and takes complaints at DoNotCall.gov. The online form asks for your registered phone number, the caller’s number, the date of the call, and whether the call played a recorded message. When you submit it, the system produces a confirmation screen with a reference number worth saving.1Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs
The FTC does not follow up on individual reports or resolve them the way a lawsuit would. Every complaint feeds a database that investigators use to spot patterns, and when enough reports stack up against one company it becomes a target. These cases regularly produce multimillion-dollar settlements and court orders shutting operations down. Companies face civil penalties of up to $53,088 per call under the FTC’s most recent inflation-adjusted figure, updated each January.2Federal Trade Commission. FTC Publishes Inflation-Adjusted Civil Penalty Amounts for 2025
Filing a Complaint With the FCC
The FCC enforces the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which covers robocalls, autodialed texts, and caller ID spoofing. File through the FCC Consumer Complaint Center at consumercomplaints.fcc.gov and pick the “unwanted calls” category. The form lets you flag whether your number is being spoofed, blocked, or mislabeled. The FCC uses complaint data to guide enforcement and may share your report with other agencies.3Federal Communications Commission. Stop Unwanted Robocalls and Texts
Filing with both agencies is worth the extra few minutes. The FTC pursues telemarketing sales cases; the FCC handles the technical violations around automated dialing and fake caller ID. The same call can support both types of enforcement.
Suing the Caller Yourself
Agency complaints are useful, but they do not put money in your pocket. The TCPA does. It gives you a private right to sue in state court, and each individual call or text counts as its own violation.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 227 – Restrictions on Use of Telephone Equipment
You can recover $500 per violation, or your actual financial losses if they were higher. If you can show the caller knew it was breaking the law or acted recklessly, the court can triple the award to $1,500 per call. A company that robocalled you fifty times could owe $25,000 to $75,000 for that one campaign.
Courts generally apply a four-year statute of limitations, borrowing the federal catch-all period because the TCPA does not specify one. The clock starts fresh from each call, so even a caller who has been dialing you for five years is still on the hook for anything within the last four.
Many TCPA cases fit within small claims court limits, especially if you are suing over a handful of calls. Small claims filing fees typically run about $30 to $100 for claims under a few thousand dollars, and you do not need a lawyer to appear. For hundreds of violations, or if you think you can prove the company acted willfully, a consultation with a consumer attorney is worth it.
When the Call Is Actually Legal
Not every unwanted call is a violation, and complaints about legal calls will not go anywhere. Several categories of callers sit outside the registry’s reach.5Federal Trade Commission. QA for Telemarketers and Sellers About DNC Provisions in TSR
- Political calls promoting a candidate, party, or cause are not covered by the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
- Charities calling on their own behalf are exempt, as are for-profit fundraisers calling on behalf of a charity.
- Genuine surveys and polls are exempt, though a “survey” that pivots into a sales pitch is not.
Companies you have done business with can also call you legally for a limited time. If you bought, rented, leased, or had a financial transaction with the company, it has 18 months from that last transaction to call. If you only inquired or submitted an application, the window is three months. After that, calls without fresh consent are violations.
Robocalls and autodialed texts are a separate matter. A prerecorded sales message needs your prior written consent regardless of whether your number is on the registry. The same rule applies to autodialed calls or marketing texts to your cell phone.1Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs
How to Revoke Consent
If you once gave a company permission to call or text you, taking that permission back turns future contact into a violation you can report and sue over. You can revoke consent in any reasonable way that clearly communicates you want the contact to stop. A company cannot require you to use one specific method, like mailing a letter, while ignoring other reasonable requests.6Federal Communications Commission. Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
For text messages, the FCC has identified several methods that automatically count:
- Replying with “stop,” “quit,” “end,” “revoke,” “opt out,” “cancel,” or “unsubscribe.”
- Using an automated opt-out mechanism during a call, such as pressing a key to be removed.
- Submitting a request through a website or phone number the company has designated for opt-outs.
A revocation through one channel covers all channels. If you reply “stop” to a marketing text, that also ends the company’s right to call you. If a texting system does not support two-way replies, the sender must include clear instructions in every message on how to opt out.
Once you have revoked consent, note the date and the method you used. If the calls continue, you now have exactly what an FTC complaint, an FCC complaint, and a small claims filing all ask for: a documented violation, a caller you can identify, and a number of your own that was on the registry when the phone rang.