What makes a marketing text illegal?

No consent: the most common problem

The first and most common issue is consent, or the lack of it. To send you marketing texts, a company generally needs your written permission first. Not assumed permission because you once bought something, not permission a previous owner of your number gave, and not consent buried in fine print you never agreed to. Real, specific permission to receive ads.

When a promotional text arrives and you never opted in, that’s the missing-consent problem, and it’s enough on its own. It doesn’t matter whether the company is legitimate or the offer is real. The violation is in texting your cell without the consent the law requires. If you did once give your number, that’s not the end of the story. See can I sue if I once gave my number.

Automated sending: how spam gets sent

The second factor is how the text was sent. The TCPA was written to stop automated, mass messaging, the kind of system that fires the same promotional text to thousands of numbers at once. Bulk marketing blasts are almost always sent that way. A single person texting you by hand is different from a platform blasting a campaign, and the law treats them differently.

You don’t have to prove the technical details yourself; that’s what the review and the case work are for. But it’s useful to know that the very thing that makes spam texts feel impersonal and machine-sent is also what brings them under the law.

Texts after you said stop

The third factor is timing. Even if a company once had your permission, you can take it back by replying STOP or telling them in plain words to quit. Every text that comes after that is a problem, and usually a worse one for the sender, because ignoring a clear opt-out tends to look willful. That’s what pushes a $500 violation up to $1,500.

Any one of these three can support a claim, and they stack. Each text is its own violation. So a single text without consent can be enough, and a campaign that runs on after your STOP can be worth a great deal more.

What these texts are worth, and how to find out

Put the three factors together and the value follows a simple rule: $500 per illegal text, up to $1,500 if the conduct was willful, with every message counted on its own. Because they stack, the number of texts drives the claim. A marketer that sends one promotional text a day for two weeks isn’t sending a minor nuisance. It is potentially fourteen violations. And none of it depends on the texts having cost you money; the law fixes the amount.

You don’t have to sort out which factors apply to your texts on your own. That’s what a free review is for. You bring the messages: screenshots of the texts, the sender’s number, and any STOP reply. Max Morgan, Esq., a real TCPA attorney, tells you whether they cross the line and what they might be worth. He works on contingency: no fee unless you recover, nationwide. Every case is different, and the review costs you nothing. For a sense of what these claims have produced, see past settlements.

Related: Are unsolicited marketing texts illegal? · Can I sue if I once gave my number? · I replied STOP and they kept texting · Spam text message lawsuit