More guidance has been provided on how courts define “express consent” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) with regards to debt collection. In the case Sharp v. Allied Interstate Inc., a federal district court in New York relied on earlier Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulings that found that consumers had given their prior express consent in situations where they had given their respective contact telephone numbers to creditors in transactions that resulted in debts.

Consumers who have debt in default have probably received many calls from debt collectors wanting them to make payments. Consumers are protected from abusive collection practices under the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act (FDCPA). However, the FDCPA protections do not apply to a consumer’s original creditor.

In response to the increase in the number of consumer complaints about telemarketers and debt collection calls, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was enacted. The intention of this act was to reduce the number of nuisance calls made to consumers and to protect their privacy.

In 1991 Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to respond to the concerns of consumers over the growing number of unsolicited telemarketing calls made to their homes, as well as the increased use of automated and prerecorded messages. Rules were adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requiring that anyone making telephone solicitation calls to a person’s home provide