Collection Calls Under the TCPA, FDCPA, and Rosenthal Act

Seven calls in seven days. Under the CFPB’s Regulation F, a debt collector that calls about one debt more often than that is presumed to be harassing the consumer. Three laws govern collection calls: the TCPA controls recorded and autodialed calls, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act controls frequency and timing for third-party collectors, and California’s Rosenthal Act extends similar rules to creditors collecting their own debts. A collection operation that documents consent and call counts carefully has strong answers to most of these claims.

Which laws apply to which callers?

Each law answers a different question, and they don’t cover the same companies.

The FDCPA covers someone who collects debts “owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another,” under 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6), and it excludes “any officer or employee of a creditor while, in the name of the creditor, collecting debts for such creditor.” Original creditors are generally outside it.

California brings them in. The Rosenthal Act defines a debt collector as “any person who, in the ordinary course of business, regularly, on behalf of that person or others, engages in debt collection,” under Civil Code § 1788.2. A lender or retailer collecting its own accounts from Californians is a debt collector under state law, and it must “comply with the provisions of Sections 1692b to 1692j, inclusive,” of the federal statute under § 1788.17.

The TCPA applies to anyone who robocalls a cell phone, collector or not.

Call frequency and timing

The FDCPA treats as harassment “Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number,” under § 1692d(5). Regulation F turns that into numbers. A collector is presumed to violate the rule if it calls about a debt “More than seven times within seven consecutive days,” or calls “Within a period of seven consecutive days after having had a telephone conversation with the person in connection with the collection of such debt,” under 12 C.F.R. § 1006.14(b)(2). Staying under both limits for each person and each debt creates a presumption that the collector complied, and calls that don’t connect to the dialed number don’t count toward the limits.

Timing has its own rule. Regulation F says “a time before 8:00 a.m. and after 9:00 p.m. local time at the consumer’s location is inconvenient,” under 12 C.F.R. § 1006.6(b)(1)(i), and that rule reaches texts and emails as well as calls.

Texts don’t count toward seven-in-seven. The CFPB’s official interpretation says “placing a telephone call” includes a ringless voicemail but not an electronic message, per its commentary on § 1006.14. That doesn’t make heavy texting safe. A stream of collection texts can still be challenged as harassment.

California’s version is broader in wording. The Rosenthal Act bars “Causing a telephone to ring repeatedly or continuously to annoy the person called,” and calling “with such frequency as to be unreasonable, and to constitute harassment of the debtor under the circumstances,” under Civil Code § 1788.11.

Robocalls and consent

A collector that calls a cell phone with a prerecorded voice or an autodialer needs prior express consent, under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). The statute still prints an exception for calls to collect federal debts, but the Supreme Court held in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants that “the 2015 government-debt exception added an unconstitutional exception to the law.” Collectors of federal debt get no special treatment.

Consent often comes from the original transaction. The FCC said in a 2008 ruling that giving a cell number to a creditor in that transaction “reasonably evidences prior express consent by the cell phone subscriber to be contacted at that number regarding the debt,” in FCC 07-232. After McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., courts aren’t bound by that ruling, but its reasoning tracks the statute’s ordinary meaning, and collectors should keep the account application that shows where the number came from.

Consent can be revoked, and the FCC won’t let collectors require written revocations. When it adopted its 2026 opt-out order, the agency rejected that request: “We disagree with the commenter who argues that callers that are regulated by another agency when communicating with consumers should be allowed to designate any such revocation method established by that agency’s regulations as the exclusive means to revoke consent,” according to FCC 26-67. A collector’s robocall system has to honor oral and text revocations.

Do Not Call rules generally don’t reach collection calls, since they aren’t sales calls. The FTC lists debt collection calls among those allowed to registered numbers in its Do Not Call FAQs.

Exposure across the three laws

The middle row has a ceiling. The FDCPA caps an individual’s additional damages “not exceeding $1,000,” under § 1692k, however many calls there were. The TCPA counts per call, so in a collection robocall case the TCPA claim usually carries the real exposure. The Rosenthal penalty requires a willful and knowing violation, according to § 1788.30, and the statute excuses a violation that wasn’t intentional and resulted despite procedures reasonably adapted to avoid it.

One setting I’d check before any claim arrives: the rule counts calls per person and per debt, so a dialer that counts per account can drift over the limit without anyone noticing.

If a collection-call claim arrives

1. Preserve dialer records for the account, including every attempt, its time stamp, whether a recorded voice played, and the consent record for the number.
2. Pull the revocation and cease-communication history, with the date each request arrived and when the dialer stopped.
3. Confirm whether any calls were sales calls instead of collection calls, since those bring Registry rules into play.
4. Collect the original account application, any number-update records, and vendor agreements with the dialer or agency.
5. Talk to a lawyer before responding to the claim, contacting the consumer’s lawyer, or making a payment offer.

Questions collectors ask

Can we robocall a cell number the debtor gave us on the application?

The FCC has said that providing a cell number in the transaction that created the debt shows consent to collection calls at that number. Courts give that ruling respect but aren’t bound by it after McLaughlin. Keep the application, and honor any revocation within ten business days.

Do the seven-in-seven limits apply to original creditors?

Regulation F applies to debt collectors as the FDCPA defines them, which generally excludes creditors collecting their own debts. In California, though, the Rosenthal Act covers creditors and bars repeated calls meant to annoy, so a creditor calling Californians should treat seven-in-seven as a sensible working limit.

Are collection texts subject to the TCPA?

Yes, when sent with an autodialer to a cell phone without consent, since courts have treated texts as calls for that provision. Most collection texting platforms send to account lists rather than generating numbers, which narrows that claim. Texts still have to respect Regulation F’s time-of-day rule and can’t be harassing.

What happens when we call a number that now belongs to someone else?

That’s a common source of TCPA exposure, because the prior debtor’s consent doesn’t cover the new subscriber. Checking the FCC’s Reassigned Numbers Database before calling, and stopping promptly when told it’s a wrong number, are the best protections. The safe harbor applies only when the database returned an inaccurate answer.

Defending collection-call claims

If your company collects debts and faces TCPA or debt collection claims over its calls, the consent records and call-frequency logs are where the defense starts. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving collection robocalls and call-frequency limits. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The federal statutes are the TCPA at 47 U.S.C. § 227 and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act at 15 U.S.C. § 1692a, § 1692d, and § 1692k. Regulation F is at 12 C.F.R. § 1006.6 and § 1006.14, with the CFPB’s official interpretation of § 1006.14. California’s Rosenthal Act provisions are Civil Code § 1788.2, § 1788.11, § 1788.17, and § 1788.30. FCC materials are FCC 07-232 and FCC 26-67. The FTC’s guidance is its Do Not Call Registry FAQs. The court decisions are Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, 591 U.S. 610 (2020), and McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of October 10, 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.