Wrong-Number TCPA Claims: Reassigned Numbers and Business Exposure

“Over a period of four months, Credit One Bank’s vendors made 189 automated calls to an eleven-year-old boy’s cell phone,” the Ninth Circuit wrote in a 2020 case about a reassigned number. The customer’s consent didn’t protect the bank, because only the current subscriber’s consent counts. Wrong-number calls are a common source of TCPA exposure for collectors and pharmacies, and the defenses depend on records most companies can build in advance.

Whose consent counts?

The current subscriber’s. The TCPA bars robocalls to a cell phone without “the prior express consent of the called party,” under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A). Callers have argued that “called party” means the intended recipient, and courts have rejected it.

In N.L. v. Credit One Bank, the Ninth Circuit, which covers California, held: “Consistent with every circuit to have addressed this issue, we hold that this argument fails under the TCPA’s text, most naturally read.” The Seventh Circuit reached the same result in Soppet v. Enhanced Recovery Co.: “Consent to call a given number must come from its current subscriber.”

The recorded voice now carries most of the risk

N.L. was tried as an autodialer case. Since then, the Supreme Court narrowed the autodialer definition in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, and most list-based collection and notification systems fall outside it. The Court left the recorded-voice rule alone: “Our decision does not affect that prohibition.”

That makes the voice on the call the central fact, and plaintiffs have to prove it. A federal court in Northern California granted summary judgment to a debt buyer in January 2026 because the plaintiff couldn’t show the calls used a recorded voice. As the court explained in Wofford v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, “But as opposed to the ATDS prohibition, all that matters here is whether the calls were actually made using an artificial or prerecorded voice.” I think call-type records, showing which attempts connected to a live agent and which played a message, are among the most useful documents in a wrong-number defense.

The Reassigned Numbers Database safe harbor

The FCC created a defense for callers that check before dialing. Under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(m), a caller “will not be liable for violating the prohibitions in paragraph (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section by making a call to a number for which the person previously had obtained prior express consent of the called party” if it queried the FCC’s database and the database wrongly reported that the number hadn’t been reassigned. The FCC says its Reassigned Numbers Database “is designed to prevent a consumer from getting unwanted calls intended for someone who previously held their phone number.”

The safe harbor is narrow. It protects only a caller that actually queried the database and got a wrong answer, and because the caller bears the burden of proof, a company that can’t produce its query records is in the same position as one that never checked.

Emergency and health calls

Calls made for an emergency purpose fall outside the consent requirement. In Aguirre v. Optum Health Plan of California, a federal court in Riverside dismissed a 2025 wrong-number case over prerecorded health-plan calls, finding the calls fell within that exception. The court also noted that “Plaintiff does not allege that she ever made an effort to communicate to Defendant that she was not the intended caller, or that Defendant should stop contacting her.” The ruling binds no other court, but it shows how much the recipient’s notice matters. Our post on the emergency-purposes exception covers which alerts qualify.

Wrong-number arguments and the records that answer them

Exposure is $500 per recorded-voice call under § 227(b)(3), and a court may increase it up to three times if it finds the calls willful or knowing. In N.L., the trial court “denied N.L.’s post-trial motion for treble damages under the TCPA,” according to the opinion. Debt collection calls can add state claims: “The jury also found for N.L. on his Rosenthal Act claim, awarding him $1,000 in statutory damages but no actual damages.”

Building a wrong-number defense file

1. Preserve dialer records for the number, including each attempt, whether it played a recorded message, and the consent record the company relied on.
2. Pull wrong-number flags, opt-out history, and the date the number was suppressed.
3. Pull Reassigned Numbers Database query records and results, along with any Registry scrub records for sales campaigns.
4. Collect vendor contracts, call scripts, and recorded or AI message files used on the account.
5. Talk to a lawyer before contacting the plaintiff or responding to a demand letter.

The firm’s page for TCPA defense attorneys in California covers how claims involving reassigned and wrong-number calls are evaluated, from the records to the first response.

Wrong-number questions from businesses

Does a customer’s consent cover calls after the number changes hands?

No. Consent belongs to the person who gave it. Once a carrier reassigns a disconnected number, the new subscriber hasn’t consented, and recorded-voice calls to that number are exposed unless the company can show the new subscriber’s own consent or fit the calls within the safe harbor. Checking the FCC’s database before campaigns is the main safeguard.

How often should we query the Reassigned Numbers Database?

Close to the time of the calls, using the date consent was obtained. The safe harbor applies only if the company queried the database with that date and the database wrongly reported that the number hadn’t been permanently disconnected since then. Building the query into dialing workflows, rather than running it occasionally, keeps the records consistent.

What should agents do when told it’s a wrong number?

Flag the number immediately and stop recorded and automated calls to it. Notice is where many wrong-number cases become willfulness cases. A system that suppresses the number the same day, and logs that it did, is the best protection against treble damages.

Are wrong-number texts treated the same way?

Plain texts aren’t recorded voices, and most texting platforms fall outside the autodialer definition after Duguid. That narrows wrong-number text claims. Collectors should still remember that texts to the wrong person can raise separate debt collection issues. Our post on autodialer claims after Duguid covers how to test that allegation.

Defending wrong-number robocall claims

If your company has been sued over calls that reached a reassigned or wrong number, the Reassigned Numbers Database records and call scripts are where the defense begins. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving reassigned and wrong-number calls. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The statute is 47 U.S.C. § 227. The FCC’s reassigned-numbers safe harbor is at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(m), as published in the eCFR through March 25, 2026. The FCC describes its Reassigned Numbers Database on its website. The appellate decisions are N.L. v. Credit One Bank, N.A., 960 F.3d 1164 (9th Cir. 2020); Soppet v. Enhanced Recovery Co., 679 F.3d 637 (7th Cir. 2012); and Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021). The district court orders are Wofford v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, No. 24-cv-07509 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 16, 2026), and Aguirre v. Optum Health Plan of California, No. 5:25-cv-01161 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2025).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of March 25, 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Courts and the FCC change the rules in this area often, and the outcome of any claim depends on its facts. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.