The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, is the US federal law governing telemarketing calls and texts. It covers consent, calling hours, do-not-call obligations and the use of autodialers and artificial or prerecorded voices. It is enforced by the FCC and through private lawsuits, with damages counted per call.
TCPA liability is statutory and per call, which is why suppression and calling-window enforcement are treated as hard controls on a compliant floor rather than as best practice.
What the TCPA covers
The TCPA was passed in 1991 and the Federal Communications Commission writes the rules that implement it. For an outbound floor the main areas are: calling hours, generally 8am to 9pm in the called person's local time; do-not-call, both the national registry and internal lists; consent, especially the prior express written consent most telemarketing calls with artificial or prerecorded voices need; and caller identification.
The Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule overlaps with the TCPA and adds its own requirements, such as the limit on abandoned calls. Many states also have their own telemarketing laws, sometimes called mini-TCPAs, which can be stricter on hours, call frequency and consent.
AI voices and the TCPA
In February 2024 the FCC issued a declaratory ruling stating that AI-generated voices, including cloned voices, count as an "artificial" voice under the TCPA. In practice, calls that use an AI voice are treated like calls with a prerecorded voice, so the same consent requirements apply. For a floor running voice bots on US campaigns, that makes consent records and suppression even more important.
How this ruling applies to a specific campaign depends on the call type, the consent you hold and any later rules or court decisions. This is a general summary, not legal advice. Confirm your position with counsel who handles TCPA work.
Why it matters on a floor
TCPA claims are usually brought against the US seller or lead buyer, but contracts pass that risk down to the vendor that placed the calls. A floor in Lahore or Noida that cannot show consent records, DNC scrubs and calling-window logs for a disputed call is likely to lose the client, even if it never sees a court.
Statutory damages are set per call, so a single bad list can produce a very large exposure. That is why compliant floors enforce calling windows in the dialer, suppress DNC requests on the call, and keep consent proof attached to every lead.
Common mistakes
Treating the TCPA as the client's problem. Contracts usually say otherwise.
Dialing on the floor's local clock instead of the consumer's time zone.
Running leads with no consent record, or consent for a different product or seller.
Assuming last year's rules still apply. Revocation rules, consent rules and AI-voice guidance have all moved recently.
Records worth keeping
For any number dialed, a compliant floor can usually produce the consent proof, the DNC scrub date, the time of the call in the consumer's time zone, the caller ID used and the recording. Keep these long enough to answer a claim, which can arrive years after the call.