Litigator Trap
A phone number registered to a known TCPA plaintiff who files lawsuits over unwanted calls — a one-call mistake costs $5,000-$50,000 in settlement demands.
Litigator traps are real phone numbers belonging to professional TCPA plaintiffs. These individuals (sometimes called serial filers) have filed dozens of TCPA suits each, often by deliberately publishing their numbers on directories that cold-callers scrape, then suing on every dial that reaches them.
The traps are concentrated by state — California, Florida, and Texas have the highest litigator counts. Some are listed under business-sounding names that look like normal prospects on a Google Maps pull. Without a litigator-database scrub, an agency's first contact with a trap is a demand letter.
DNC providers maintain litigator lists (typically 50,000-200,000 numbers nationally) and flag any match alongside the federal/state DNC scrub. Cost of inclusion is $0; cost of skipping is at minimum a $5,000 settlement to make the lawsuit go away.
Related terms
- DNC ScrubbingPre-checking phone numbers against federal and state Do-Not-Call lists before outbound dialing to avoid TCPA violations and known-litigator traps.
- TCPA ComplianceAdhering to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act — the federal law governing outbound calls and texts in the US, enforcing consent rules, calling-time windows, and DNC respect.
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