Maryland Stop the Spam Calls Act of 2023

Without the called party's prior express written consent, a person may not make or cause to be made a telephone solicitation that uses an automated system for the selection or dialing of telephone numbers, or that plays a recorded message when a connection is completed to the number called.

A telephone solicitation is an organized activity, program, or campaign to communicate by telephone with Maryland residents in order to sell, lease, or rent goods or services, offer a gift or prize, conduct a poll, or request survey information that will be used directly to solicit purchases. A telephone solicitation made to any area code in the State is presumed to be made to a person who resides or has a place of business in Maryland, a presumption the caller may rebut.

Prior express written consent is a written agreement bearing the called party's signature, which may be an electronic signature valid under federal or State law, that names the number to be called and clearly and conspicuously discloses that signing authorizes solicitations by an automated dialing system or a recorded message.

The disclosure must also tell the called party that they are not required to sign the agreement, or to agree to it as a condition of purchasing any property, goods, or services.

The consent duty does not apply to an isolated telephone solicitation outside a pattern of repeated transactions, a business-to-business sale by a solicitor lawfully operating continuously for at least 3 years under the same business name, a solicitation of a contract to maintain or repair goods previously bought from the person soliciting, a single solicitation made in response to the customer's own inquiry or request, a communication between a business and a customer with an existing contract or relationship that begins as informational and becomes a solicitation on the customer's further inquiry, a noncommercial solicitation for public opinion research, or a noncommercial solicitation for religious, charitable, political, or educational purposes.

A person soliciting for a noncommercial religious, charitable, political, or educational purpose is exempt only where the solicitation is for a nonprofit entity that is registered with the Secretary of State and exempt from taxation under section 501(c)(3), (4), or (6) of the Internal Revenue Code. Those exemptions reach only the consent duty; the caller-identification, calling-hours and call-frequency duties below apply to every telephone solicitation.

A telephone solicitor must transmit its originating telephone number, and its name where its carrier makes that available, to the called party's caller identification service, may not intentionally prevent that transmission, and may not use technology that displays a different caller identification number to conceal its identity. The solicitor may display instead the name of the seller for whom the call is placed and the seller's customer service number.

A telephone solicitor may not place a solicitation call, including one made through automated dialing or a recorded message, between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. in the called party's time zone, more than three times to the same person in a 24-hour period on the same subject matter regardless of the telephone numbers used, or while intentionally altering its voice to disguise its identity in order to defraud, confuse, or injure the called party or to obtain personal information from them.

A called party aggrieved by a violation may sue under section 13-408 to enjoin it and recover damages of up to $500 or actual damages, whichever is greater, which the court may treble on finding the violation willful or knowing, and a violation is also an unfair, abusive, or deceptive trade practice enforceable under Title 13.