Glossary
Spam Text
An unwanted text message, usually marketing or a scam, sent to your phone without your consent. Unwanted marketing texts can violate the TCPA, which allows lawsuits for $500 to $1,500 per message.
A spam text is an unsolicited text message, typically advertising a product, a loan, a political cause, or a scam designed to steal information. Some are sent by legitimate companies that never got proper consent; others come from fraudsters using spoofed numbers.
Federal law treats texts much like calls. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act restricts calls made with an automatic telephone dialing system or a prerecorded voice without consent, and the FCC and courts have long applied those rules to text messages. The TCPA also has Do Not Call protections, so marketing texts to a number on the National Do Not Call Registry can be unlawful even without an autodialer. Under 47 U.S.C. 227, a person can recover $500 in damages for each violation, and a court may triple that to $1,500 if the violation was willful or knowing.
Several things strengthen a spam text claim:
- You never gave the sender your number or agreed to receive texts, or you replied STOP and the texts kept coming.
- Your number has been on the National Do Not Call Registry for more than 31 days.
- The texts arrived during quiet hours set by some state laws, or came in high volume.
Scam texts from anonymous fraudsters are hard to pursue because there is no company to sue; forward them to 7726 (SPAM) and report them to the FTC. Texts from identifiable businesses are where lawsuits happen. Take screenshots showing the sender and dates. See our spam text lawsuit page, quiet hours texts, and the guide on how to stop robocalls and spam texts.
Related on Best Class Actions
Sources.
Statutes, court rules, appellate opinions, and bar publications we relied on. See our editorial standards.