How much can you get from a TCPA lawsuit?

The TCPA, 47 U.S.C. 227, has two main private rights of action, each with its own damages rule.

• Robocalls and autodialed calls, Section 227(b). This covers prerecorded or artificial voice calls and calls made with an automatic telephone dialing system to cell phones without the required consent. Under 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3), a person can recover actual losses or $500 for each violation, whichever is greater, and a court may increase the award to up to three times that amount if the violation was willful or knowing.
• Do Not Call violations, Section 227(c). This covers telemarketing to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry and to people who asked a company to stop. Under Section 227(c)(5), a person who received more than one call within any 12-month period from or on behalf of the same company in violation of the rules can recover up to $500 per violation, also trebled for willful or knowing violations.

Because damages are per violation, totals add up quickly in an individual case. Ten qualifying calls could support a claim of $5,000, or up to $15,000 if a court finds the calls were willful. These are maximums the statute allows, not what a given case will win.

Class settlements trade the statutory amount for certainty. A company facing millions of calls times $500 could face ruinous liability, so the parties negotiate a fund that is a small fraction of the theoretical total, and that fund is divided among people who file claims.

In the Capital One TCPA settlement, 1,378,534 class members filed claims, and after the judge reduced attorneys' fees from 30% to about 20.8% of the $75.5 million fund, each claimant's estimated payment rose from $34.60 to $39.66.

The Momentum Solar TCPA settlement covered people who received two or more telemarketing calls from or on behalf of Momentum within a 365-day period from March 5, 2015 through January 2, 2025. Claimants could claim up to 50 calls and receive a pro rata, per-call share of the fund after fees and costs, according to the official settlement website. Its claim deadline was July 31, 2025, and the final approval hearing was August 18, 2025.

The Heckathorn settlement with Farmers Insurance, over telemarketing by certain Farmers agents to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, offered a pro rata share up to $160. Its claim deadline was September 14, 2026 and its final approval hearing was September 23, 2026, so claims are closed. You can follow similar cases on our Farmers Insurance TCPA settlement page.

Several things shrink the per-person figure.

• Litigation risk. Defenses can wipe out claims. In Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid (2021), the Supreme Court held that a device counts as an autodialer only if it can store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator, which ended many autodialer claims based on ordinary contact-list dialing. Consent, arbitration clauses, and disputes over whether calls were telemarketing also cut settlement value.
• Unsettled law on texts. On July 14, 2026, the Seventh Circuit held in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services that text messages are not "telephone calls" under Section 227(c)(5), removing that Do Not Call claim for texts in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. The Ninth Circuit held in January 2026 that texts are calls under Section 227(b), creating a split.
• Fees and costs. The Heckathorn notice, for example, says class counsel would ask for up to $396,666.67 in fees and expenses and an $11,000 service award from the $1.25 million fund, with administration costs also deducted.
• Claims volume. In pro rata funds, more claimants means a smaller share each.

See who pays the lawyers in a class action for how fees are approved.

If you received many illegal calls from one company, an individual claim can be worth far more than a class share, because you keep the per-violation damages rather than a pro rata slice. The TCPA lets people bring claims in an appropriate state court if state law or court rules allow it, and federal courts also hear TCPA cases.

The trade-offs:

• Proof is on you. You need call logs, screenshots, recordings of prerecorded messages, and evidence of who was behind the calls. Many robocalls use spoofed numbers, so identifying the company is often the hardest part.
• Consent defenses. The company may claim you consented through a website form or a past purchase.
• You must opt out. If a class settlement covers your calls, you have to exclude yourself by the deadline to keep an individual claim. See how to opt out or object.

For most people with a handful of calls, filing a class claim is the practical choice. For people with dozens of documented calls, especially after asking the company to stop, an individual claim may be worth discussing with a lawyer.

Under 28 U.S.C. 1658(a), a claim under a federal law enacted after December 1, 1990 must generally be filed within four years, and courts apply that four-year limit to TCPA claims. The clock usually runs from each call or text, so older calls may drop out while newer ones remain timely.

Start saving evidence now:

1. Screenshots of call logs and texts showing dates, times, and the calling number.
2. Voicemails, especially prerecorded ones.
3. Proof of your Do Not Call registration date (you can check it at donotcall.gov).
4. Any STOP replies or requests to be removed, and any calls that came after them.
5. Notes on what each caller was selling and the company name they used.

Learn more in our TCPA explainer, and see current cases on robocall lawsuits, spam text lawsuits, and wrong-number robocalls. If you have received repeated illegal calls or texts, a free case review takes about two minutes.