Wrong Number Robocalls: Your Rights When Calls Are for Someone Else

Why you get calls meant for someone else

Phone numbers get recycled. When someone cancels a line, the carrier eventually gives that number to a new customer. The old owner may have given the number to a bank, a pharmacy, a utility or a collection agency. Those companies keep calling it, and now the calls reach you.

The calls usually sound like this: a recording asks for “Maria Lopez” and says to call back about an important matter. Or a text says a payment is past due on an account you have never had. You may tell a live agent “wrong number” three times and still get more recordings the next week.

The legal rule: consent belongs to the current subscriber

The TCPA bans prerecorded or autodialed calls to a cell phone without “the prior express consent of the called party” (47 U.S.C. 227(b)(1)(A)(iii)). The key question is who the “called party” is.

In Soppet v. Enhanced Recovery Co., 679 F.3d 637 (7th Cir. May 11, 2012), a debt collector used an automated system to call cell numbers that customers had given to AT&T years before. The numbers had since been reassigned. The collector made 18 calls to one plaintiff and 29 to another. The Seventh Circuit held that “‘called party’ in § 227(b)(1) means the person subscribing to the called number at the time the call is made.” The old customer’s consent did not carry over to the new one.

The court also pointed out simple ways a collector can avoid the problem: have a person make the first call and confirm who owns the number, or use a reverse lookup before switching to automated calls.

The one-call safe harbor that did not survive

In 2015 the FCC tried to give callers some room. Its order created a “one-call safe harbor”: a caller could make one call to a reassigned number without liability, as long as it did not actually know the number had changed. In ACA International v. FCC, 885 F.3d 687 (D.C. Cir. 2018), the court set aside the FCC’s treatment of reassigned numbers in its entirety, finding the one-call limit arbitrary. After that ruling, callers could no longer rely on a free first call.

The Reassigned Numbers Database and its safe harbor

The FCC then built a tool instead of a free pass. Its December 13, 2018 Second Report and Order created the Reassigned Numbers Database (RND). Phone companies report numbers that have been permanently disconnected. A caller enters a number and a date on which it believes the number still belonged to the consenting customer. The database answers “yes,” “no” or “no data.” The FCC selected SomosGov, Inc. to run it.

The safe harbor is written into 47 C.F.R. 64.1200(m). A caller avoids liability for a call to a reassigned number only if:

• it had valid consent from the previous user;
• it checked the most recent version of the database and got a “no” (not permanently disconnected since that date); and
• the call reached the wrong person because the database was wrong.

What this means for you: a company that never checked the database gets no safe harbor at all. And once you tell a company it has the wrong number, it has actual knowledge. Calls after that are hard to defend.

A current wrong-number settlement

Seals v. Concora Credit Inc. (D. Or., No. 3:25-cv-00728-AN) is a pending $9.375 million class settlement over prerecorded calls to cell phones not linked to a Concora account, from May 2, 2021 through May 31, 2026. Estimated payments are $250 to $650 per claimant. The claim deadline is October 19, 2026, and the final approval hearing is November 24, 2026.

The Concora class is defined by who was not a customer. That is typical of wrong-number cases: the company’s own records show the number was never tied to an account holder, which makes the class easy to identify.

When a wrong-number call is not a claim

• A live person dialed by hand, with no recording, and hung up when you said wrong number.
• A text or call to your landline for someone else that was not prerecorded and was not a sales call.
• A single call where the caller checked the database, got a “no,” and stopped as soon as you told it.

Also note that wrong-number collection calls are usually TCPA claims, not FDCPA claims. The FDCPA protects the “consumer” who owes the debt, though a collector’s calls to you can still raise FDCPA issues if it reveals the debtor’s business to you.

How to document wrong-number robocalls

1. Say “wrong number, stop calling” on the first live call and note the date and the agent’s name. Reply STOP to texts.
2. Save each voicemail. The recording shows the call was prerecorded and names the person they want.
3. Record when you got your number. Your carrier’s activation date proves you were the subscriber when the calls came in.
4. Count calls after you told them. Those are the strongest calls in any case. A dated call log keeps this straight.

What to do next about calls meant for someone else

Tell the company once, in writing if you can, that the number is yours and the person they want is not reachable there. Then keep logging. If recorded calls continue, you likely have strong facts, because the company cannot claim your consent and has been told it is wrong. Read our explanation of the prerecorded voice rule. Then ask for a free case review.