Moving and Auto Transport Leads: TCPA Risk From Shared Quote Requests

A moving or auto-transport company can be sued under the TCPA for calls it never dialed. Quote sites and brokers often pass one customer request to several carriers, and when a customer complains, every carrier that called, and sometimes the one that paid for the lead, gets named. Liability depends on two questions: whether the customer’s consent covered that company, and whether the caller was acting as its agent. A company that can answer both from its own records has strong defenses to a shared-lead claim.

Can a mover be liable for calls made by a lead vendor?

Only if agency law makes it responsible. The Ninth Circuit held in Jones v. Royal Administration Services, Inc., 887 F.3d 443 (9th Cir. 2018), that “A defendant is vicariously liable for violations of the TCPA where common law principles of agency would impose it.” The company in Jones sold vehicle service contracts through about 20 marketing vendors, and one vendor’s call center made the calls.

The court rejected both theories the plaintiffs raised. The vendor had no actual authority to make illegal calls, because the contract barred telemarketing methods that broke the law. The court noted that “Royal expressly prohibited AAAP from employing these marketing tools.” The company also lacked enough control to be treated as the callers’ employer. “However, Royal did not have the right to control the hours the telemarketers worked nor did it set quotas for the number of calls or sales the telemarketers had to make,” the court wrote.

The facts in Jones look a lot like the moving and auto-transport lead business. The vendor’s callers first pitched the general service, then picked one of several companies to sell. Royal “never specifically controlled any part of any of the calls at issue in this case,” the court found. A carrier that buys a transferred call or a shared lead from a broker with many clients sits in a similar position.

What agency theories does Jones leave open?

Apparent authority and ratification. The plaintiffs in Jones didn’t press those theories on appeal, and the court said: “Our decision is limited to the facts and arguments properly before the court.” Plaintiffs suing movers usually plead all of them.

Ratification is the one that catches carriers. A company that keeps accepting leads after learning a vendor is calling people without consent can be said to have adopted the vendor’s conduct. The contract term barring illegal calls helps, but it helps less if the company ignores complaints that the vendor is breaking it. Acting on the first complaint is a cheap way to protect the Jones defense.

Does a quote form give consent to every mover that calls?

Not automatically. For autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls, the FCC’s rule requires prior express written consent, which 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f) defines as a signed agreement “that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver or cause to be delivered to the person called advertisements or telemarketing messages” by those methods. The seller is the company “on whose behalf a telephone call or message is initiated,” under the same rule.

That puts the focus on the form’s wording. A quote form that names the carriers, or links to a short and current list of them, gives each carrier a real consent defense. A form that refers only to marketing partners, with a link to hundreds of company names, is much weaker, because it’s hard to show that it authorized any one of them. The FCC’s 2023 one-to-one consent rule would have made that the law, but it never took effect, as the earlier post on the vacated one-to-one consent rule explains.

The consent question disappears for calls that don’t use an autodialer or prerecorded voice. A live sales call from a mover’s own staff, dialed manually, needs no written consent. It still has to follow the Do Not Call rules unless the customer asked for the call, so the quote request remains the key record.

Does the Do Not Call Registry apply to quote follow-up calls?

Yes, when the customer’s number is on the National Do Not Call Registry and the call is a sales call. The FCC’s Registry rule in § 64.1200(c)(2) excuses a call made with the person’s permission, but it sets a strict standard for proving it. That permission “must be evidenced by a signed, written agreement between the consumer and seller which states that the consumer agrees to be contacted by this seller and includes the telephone number to which the calls may be placed.”

The words “this seller” matter for shared leads. A quote form that names one broker doesn’t give a carrier the Registry permission it needs, even if the broker passed the lead along in good faith. A carrier calling a registered number off a shared lead should have its own name in the agreement, or another basis for the call.

There’s a second route. The definition of a telephone solicitation in § 64.1200(f) excludes a call “To any person with whom the caller has an established business relationship,” and a customer’s inquiry can create one for a limited time. A carrier that relies on an inquiry should keep the date of the request and call promptly. A long gap between the request and the call weakens that defense, and so does a call about something other than the move the customer asked about.

What should a carrier’s lead contracts say?

Three things carry most of the weight. The contract should bar calls and texts that violate state or federal law, in the plain terms the court relied on in Jones. It should require the vendor to keep the consent record for each lead, including the form version and the partner list shown, and hand it over on request. And it should give the carrier the right to suspend the vendor when complaints arrive.

The contract shouldn’t set call quotas or hours, or have the carrier run the vendor’s dialer. Those terms are the control facts that make a vendor look like an employee. Carriers often want both, tight compliance terms and loose operational control, and that’s the right balance. The earlier post on vendor contracts and indemnity covers the indemnity side. More on the firm’s practice is on its page on California TCPA litigation.

Records to request when a shared-lead claim arrives

1. Preserve the carrier’s call and text logs, dialer settings, and any recorded messages for the number, and send a hold notice to each lead vendor.
2. Pull the carrier’s opt-out and internal do-not-call entries for the number, with the dates received.
3. Pull the Registry scrub records and version dates for the period, from the carrier and from each vendor.
4. Collect the lead contracts, the quote form and partner list shown to the customer, and the vendor’s consent record and call scripts.
5. Talk to a lawyer before responding to the demand, calling the customer, or asking the vendor to settle on the carrier’s behalf.

Questions about moving and auto transport leads

Is a moving broker liable for calls made by the carriers it sends leads to?

It can be, if the broker’s own calls broke the rules or if the carriers acted as its agents. More often the broker is the one making the first call and passing the customer along. A broker that dials leads should hold its own written consent for each number and shouldn’t rely on the quote site’s form without seeing it.

Do texts confirming a moving quote need consent?

A text responding to the customer’s own quote request, sent soon after and limited to the quote, is the easiest message to defend. Courts treat texts as calls under the TCPA, but the autodialer rules are narrow after the Supreme Court’s 2021 Duguid decision. Follow-up marketing texts sent weeks later, such as discount offers, need more care.

What if the customer says they never filled out a quote form?

Then the vendor’s consent record is the case. The carrier needs the IP address, timestamp, form version, and any recording or certificate of the submission. Without those, the carrier is relying on the vendor’s word. Contracts should require vendors to keep them for years, not months.

Should a carrier stop buying shared leads?

Not necessarily. Shared leads are lawful when the consent names the carrier and the calls follow the rules. The risk is concentrated in vendors with long partner lists and no consent records. A carrier that audits a sample of each vendor’s leads every quarter can usually find the weak sources before a plaintiff does.

When your company is sued over lead-vendor calls

If your company is accused of TCPA violations over calls made to moving or auto-transport leads, the vendor contracts and the consent record for each lead usually decide who is responsible. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving calls to purchased leads. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The FCC’s rules are at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200, implementing 47 U.S.C. § 227. The decision is Jones v. Royal Administration Services, Inc., 887 F.3d 443 (9th Cir. 2018).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of June 12, 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.