Consumers Lose Control Over Mobile Calling

This morning, a final ruling took place on the Reyes v. Lincoln Automotive Financial Services case from the Second Circuit. Essentially consumers who have previously opted in to receiving calls from retailers, financial institutions, banks, hospitals and others do not have the right to revoke that opt-in, ouch!

Eric Troutman is a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney had a few comments regarding this late-breaking decision. "The Second Circuit Court of Appeal held today that contractual consent provisions found in consumer contracts cannot be revoked. This means that once consumers agree to receive phone calls from retailers, banks and finance companies via their acceptance of a consumer contract they cannot stop automated calls," Troutman says. "Most consumer contracts already include those provisions because the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) requires express consent before a cell phone can be called with automated technology," Troutman says. 
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 "So called “revocation” TCPA lawsuits have been very popular with the Plaintiff’s bar. In those suits a consumer sues a caller claiming that he or she had asked the calls to stop but they continued. Now that the Second Circuit Court of Appeal has found that contractual consent provisions cannot be revoked, more banks, retailers, hospitals, and even social media companies will use these provisions to assure that they can timely contact their customers on their cell phone using automated technologies. The consumer will not be able to avoid those calls by simply asking for the calls to stop, as had previously been the case.," Troutman says.