Rules of Outreach - Reassigned Number Database Dominating TCPA Litigations

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the SVP of CompliancePoint Litigation Services for an intriguing interview on the real world impact of the Reassigned Number Database… or more specifically, the impact of failing to leverage it.

Ken Sponsler (who I am also blessed to call “Dad”), established the Litigation Service practice in 2016, after a prior 12-year tenure running the TCPA consulting practice for CompliancePoint.   

Since its inception, Ken's litigation support team has been brought into as many as 40 cases annually to serve as an expert witness - generally retained by defendants.  Cases have ranged from do not call violations, to SMS law, to do not fax, and everything in-between.

In the past 18 months, ALL of the cases brought before CompliancePoint litigation services have been related to Reassigned Number Database (RND) - that’s literally 100%, after years of broad TCPA related case work.

To kick things off, I asked  Ken to explain in layman’s terms, the history behind the RND and why it came about.

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Ken:  The need for a unified database of permanently disconnected numbers was driven primarily by difficulty that defendants were having in tracking reassigned cell phones in their database.   They simply had no way of knowing.  In a perfect world, customers would call you back and let you know that they changed their phone number, but in reality this rarely occurs.

The intention of the RND is to provide notice to companies who make solicitous calls or who deliver prerecorded (including AI) messages to cell phones that a number has become permanently disconnected as opposed to temporarily disconnected due to collections or traveling abroad etc.  

Once the RND was made available, companies were then required to scrub all current customer numbers or active lead lists monthly to determine if any of those numbers had been permanently disconnected.  It was a warning that they should stop calling the customer at that number because it would be permanently disconnected from them within 90 days.

Sandy:  How long has the Reassigned Number Database been around and who is the operator of the DB?

Ken:  Following rulings made in late 2018, the RND became available for paid subscribers to scrub against in November of 2021.  The FCC is the operator of the RND and it is hosted by the Reassigned Numbers Database Administrator at https://www.reassigned.us/ 

Sandy: What responsibilities are placed on carriers related to the RND?

Ken: The FCC has required all carriers to submit all instances of permanently disconnected numbers that they were the previous carrier for. 

Sandy:  What are some of the challenges companies are facing in implementing the RND into their scrubbing process?

Ken:  One of the biggest challenges stems from the fact that there is no publicly available list of users and their cell numbers, unlike landline 411, who will list the phone number, address, and person who is the subscriber of a land line.  Cell phones typically have one main “subscriber” - say the head of the family and then spouse, grandma, kids, and any number of other users of phones under the subscriber plan. The names of any of these users is unknown publicly and people aren’t tied to their cell phone numbers.   Because of this, even today the RND contains no names or addresses. It only contains dates of permanent disconnect and cellular telephone numbers. 

As you can see, the very name of the RND can be misleading because it does not show anything about reassignments.   Anyone scrubbing it has to have a procedure to make sure those numbers are not called again.  No names, no addresses, only dates and phones.  No way to determine who disconnected it or who it was reassigned to.  

Again…  This is related to the fact that there is no database of cell phone users vs subscribers.   The onus is on the company to compare the permanent disconnect date and the date they received the number from a customer or lead provider.  

Sandy:  What risks do companies face by not scrubbing against the RND and what protections do they receive by scrubbing it?

Ken:  First, as we’ve seen in other areas of the TCPA arena, “Professional Plaintiffs aka Known Litigators” are snapping up recently disconnected numbers for personal use in order to entrap outbound callers for class actions.  We’ve encountered some cases where an individual litigant had snatched up DOZENS of them.  What we are seeing in the expert witness world is that too many companies are NOT scrubbing this database as required.  This opens them to potentially catastrophic risk in terms of settlements or orders in the court in terms of class action lawsuits.

Another word of caution is around data append / enrichment type services.  While these services can provide value for marketers, using an append, update or data validation process from a private company  is not sanctioned by the FCC as a due diligence measure related to Reassigned Numbers and does not create a defendable position.

Critically, complying with the requirement to scrub the RND monthly offers a Safe Harbor to companies who can show proof they scrub regularly.   Even if there was an error that occurred in the calling process, those companies with scrub proof have a clear safe harbor defense. 

Companies should exercise risk mitigation and show an attempt to comply by implementing the RND standard on a regular basis (at least monthly) and keep records of that activity.

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Though I’ve read a lot of content around the RND, following this conversation in which I learned about the sheer volume of cases in play, it really drove home the impacts the RND could have for many of my customers.  

This is a huge call to action to implement an RND scrub process NOW and we’d love to help you get it into place!  

Again, the DB can be accessed via https://www.reassigned.us/ 

There is a monthly cost to access.  These costs are dependent on volume scrubbed monthly.  

You also have the opportunity to maintain a subscription but work with an expert third party, like our awesome partner, PossibleNOW, to automatically handle RND scrubbing in tandem with your other scrubbing protocols (such as Known Litigator, DNC, EBR, Express Consent, Wireless, and additional regulatory requirements) and maintain your receipts of compliance.