Is a Text Message Considered a Call Under the TCPA?

Compliance Insights

Is a text a phone call?

You'd think that's a simple question, but your business's liability under the TCPA can depend on the answer. And, federal courts are now disagreeing about whether a text message counts as a "call" under parts of the TCPA.

Recent rulings on this issue, for example the July Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision, are only valid in that court's particular own territory, and may be getting appealed, so the move is not to go rebuilding a national program around one decision.

The safe posture is the boring one: treat your texts like calls.

SMS has never been the easy button people hoped for

Telecom carrier filtering and blocking, campaign registration, and other factors outside of you and your dialer's control may decide whether your messages even land.

Consent standards are stricter and harder to document than voice, and opt-out handling has to be near perfect.

Litigators and serial plaintiffs have been laser-focused on text messages lately.

Now add unsettled law, and it's clear the goalposts keep moving.

That's a lot of risk for one channel.

Voice is still king

Voice is the channel with the clearest rules, the most mature compliance tooling, and the highest value conversations.

AI is making it better fast: real-time conversation intelligence, smarter connect rates, automated QA, and agents who spend their time talking to people instead of dialing them.

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