Hour 2 · November 3, 2026
Before you call anyone about the letter, do these four things
Do not pick up the phone yet. Before you call the sender, a vendor or a lawyer, do four things: write the deadline down, suppress every listed number in every system, tell staff in writing that nothing is deleted, and pull the call and text logs for the dates in the letter. None of them cost money. All of them are harder to do after the first phone call than before it.
Before you call the sender, your vendor, your broker or a lawyer about a TCPA demand letter, do four things: write the deadline down, suppress every listed number in every system, tell staff in writing that no record is to be deleted, and pull the call and text logs for the dates in the letter. Together they take an hour. They stop the most expensive thing that can happen this week, which is more calls to the listed numbers, and they put the facts in your hands before anyone asks you a question you cannot answer.
1. Write the deadline down
Put the date from the letter in whatever you actually look at, and put a second date a week earlier. The earlier date is when you decide. The later date is when the reply goes. If the letter gives no date, treat two weeks from the postmark as the working deadline and ask the sender in writing to confirm one. See whether the deadline in a TCPA demand letter is real and what passes with it.
2. Suppress the numbers
Every number in the letter goes on the internal do-not-call list in every system that can dial or message: the dialer, the SMS platform, the CRM, any marketing automation, and every vendor or call centre working for you. Send the vendors the instruction in writing and keep their confirmation. This is the step with the biggest return for the least effort. Calls after the letter are made with knowledge, and knowing calls are the ones a court can treble to $1,500 under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3) and § 227(c)(5).
3. Preserve everything
The letter's preservation paragraph is a litigation hold, and the obligation it describes is real. Tell the people who run the dialer, the CRM and the lead files, in writing, that nothing connected to calling or texting is deleted, overwritten or tidied from today. That includes records that hurt your position. It also includes routine processes that delete on a schedule: recording retention windows, CRM purges, a vendor's data retention policy. Suspend them for the relevant data.
What to keep: dialer and messaging-platform exports, call recordings, lead files with their source and consent fields, vendor and call-centre contracts, scripts, the written do-not-call policy, registry scrub reports, opt-out logs and training records. Make a copy of the letter and the envelope.
4. Pull the logs
Export the calls and texts to each listed number for the dates in the letter and a wide margin either side. For each one note who placed it (your staff, which vendor), from what number, whether the number was on the National Do Not Call Registry at the time, whether any consent record exists, and whether a STOP or request to stop preceded it. This is the document every later conversation runs on. A lawyer can advise in ten minutes with it and not at all without it.
Who not to call first
The sender. Everything said on that call is a statement by you about the facts, with no record of what was said except theirs. Write instead.
The person who was called. They have put the matter in someone else's hands, and direct contact can be read badly.
The vendor, in anger. You will want them on your side, producing consent records and honouring an indemnity. The first message to them is a written request for records and a notice under the contract, not an argument.
Who to call, and in what form
Your insurance broker: by email, attaching the letter, asking for a written coverage position on every policy. Most general liability policies exclude TCPA claims, but late notice can forfeit cover you did have, and some cyber or media policies carry an endorsement.
A lawyer: once the logs are in hand, which is why this page comes before the first conversation with a lawyer.
The sender: in writing, quoting the reference, when you have something to say. Confirming the matter, asking for time, disputing listed items with records, or proposing a figure are all things to say. "We never do that" is not.
If you have already called them
Write down what was said, by both sides, while you remember it. Then send a short written note to the sender confirming the reference and saying that further correspondence will be in writing. The call is not fatal. The pattern of continuing to deal by phone is what causes trouble.
Short answers
Should I call the number on the demand letter?
Not yet, and preferably not at all. Write instead. A written exchange is a record of what was asked and offered, and nothing said on a call can be unsaid. If you do call, confirm the reference, ask for written confirmation of the matter, and discuss no facts.
Should I contact the person who was called?
No. They have engaged a sender or counsel to deal with you, and direct contact after that can be read as an attempt to influence them. Everything goes through the address on the letter.
Do I have to stop all outbound calling?
You have to stop calling the numbers in the letter, immediately and everywhere. Whether to pause the wider campaign is a judgement about how it was built. If consent and registry scrubbing cannot be shown for the list, every call on it carries the same risk as the ones in the letter.
Should I tell my staff?
Tell the people who touch the dialer, the CRM and the records, in writing: these numbers are suppressed, nothing is deleted, and questions come to you. Wider announcements can wait.