Law / United States / 
Texas
Telephone Solicitation Business Registration Act
In force since .
A telephone contact rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Licensing, Disclosure, Prohibition
What it requires
- Before making a telephone solicitation (a call or other transmission, a text message included) from a location in Texas or to a purchaser in Texas, register each business location with the Texas Secretary of State on a verified registration statement with a $200 filing fee and $10,000 in security (a bond, letter of credit, or certificate of deposit), renew annually, and file a quarterly addendum listing the salespeople who solicited for you.NIST Privacy FrameworkGV.PO-P5
- The chapter does not apply to, among others, a person offering qualified securities, a publicly traded corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the State Securities Board or its subsidiary or agent, an insurance licensee on an Insurance Code transaction, a supervised financial institution or its affiliate, an educational institution or 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a seller of newspaper, magazine or cable subscriptions, a food seller, a sale to a business buying for resale or manufacturing, a seller soliciting a former or current customer under the same business name for at least two years, a seller who only arranges a later face-to-face sales presentation, a retailer operating a store under the same name for at least two years where most of its business is at the store, or an isolated transaction.
- Before completing a telephone-solicited sale, give the purchaser the disclosures section 302.202 requires, post the registration certificate at the business location, and do not refer to your compliance with the chapter.NIST Privacy FrameworkGV.PO-P5
- Do not require a credit card or checking account number as a condition of receiving an item you represent as free.no control in the NIST Privacy Framework
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Texas Secretary of State (guidance, recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST Privacy Framework
- GV.PO-P5Legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements regarding privacy are understood and managed.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework, and in the NIST Privacy Framework, line by line beside each duty above. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Knowingly violating the registration certificate, quarterly-addendum, posting, pre-sale disclosure or no-compliance-reference duties (sections 302.101, 302.105, 302.201, 302.202 or 302.203), knowingly acting as a salesperson for an unregistered seller, or knowingly requiring a credit card or checking account number as a condition of receiving an item represented as free, is a Class A misdemeanor, with each violation of sections 302.251 and 302.252 a separate offense.
Penalty structure
The highest ceiling is the Deceptive Trade Practices Act's civil penalty of not more than $10,000 per violation, with an additional amount of not more than $250,000 where the act was calculated to acquire or deprive money or property from a consumer 65 or older, which section 302.303 reaches by making a violation of the chapter a deceptive act under Subchapter E, Chapter 17 and letting a public remedy of that Subchapter enforce the chapter. The chapter's own civil penalty is not more than $5,000 for each violation (section 302.302(a)), and for violating an injunction the Attorney General obtained, not more than $25,000 for each violation of the injunction and $50,000 for all violations of it.
- Rule
- Per violation only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Per violation unit
- Violation
- Per violation amount
- 10,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Texas Secretary of State (registration); Texas Attorney General (injunction and civil penalty under sections 302.301-.302); a private consumer under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act via section 302.303.
Settledness
The Secretary of State is the filing agency, and the Texas Attorney General is charged with enforcing the registration requirements.
- As of
- Guidance link
- https://www.sos.state.tx.us/statdoc/faqs3400.shtml
- Guidance body
- Texas Secretary of State
- Open questions
- Does a text message sent with prior consent fall outside the registration duty only through the exclusion in section 304.002 for 'a transmission made to a mobile telephone number as part of an ad-based telephone service', which section 302.001(6-a) imports into 'telephone call'?
What this law does
A seller may not make a telephone solicitation from a location in Texas or to a purchaser located in Texas unless it holds a registration certificate from the Secretary of State for each business location from which it solicits, obtained on a verified registration statement, a $200 filing fee and $10,000 in security, renewed annually and updated each quarter with the salespeople who solicited for it.
A telephone solicitation is a call or other transmission, including a text or graphic message or an image, initiated by a seller or salesperson to induce a person to purchase, rent, claim or receive an item, and includes a call a purchaser makes in response to a solicitation sent by mail or other means.
Senate Bill 140, effective for conduct on or after that date, redefined telephone solicitation in those terms and gave the chapter the chapter 304 definition of telephone call, which includes a text message to a mobile number. The Senate Research Center's analysis of the bill states that chapter 302 previously did not define telephone call or contemplate text messaging.
The chapter does not apply to, among others, a person offering qualified securities, a publicly traded corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the State Securities Board or its subsidiary or agent, an insurance licensee on an Insurance Code transaction, a supervised financial institution or its affiliate, an educational institution or 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a seller of newspaper, magazine or cable subscriptions, a food seller, a sale to a business buying for resale or manufacturing, a seller soliciting a former or current customer under the same business name for at least two years, a seller who only arranges a later face-to-face sales presentation, a retailer operating a store under the same name for at least two years where most of its business is at the store, or an isolated transaction.
Before a telephone-solicited sale is completed, the seller must give the purchaser the street address of the calling location and its principal location and, where it offers a free item, a below-market price or an oil, gas or mineral interest, the information the chapter specifies.
Knowingly violating the registration, quarterly-addendum, posting, disclosure or no-compliance-reference duties, knowingly acting as a salesperson for an unregistered seller, or requiring a credit card or checking account number as a condition of receiving an item offered free is a Class A misdemeanor. The Attorney General may enjoin a violation and recover a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each violation, rising to $25,000 per violation and $50,000 in aggregate for violating an injunction.
A violation of this chapter is a false, misleading or deceptive act under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, whose public and private remedies may enforce it. That Act lets a prevailing consumer recover economic damages, increased up to three times for a knowing violation, plus attorney's fees, after the consumer gives the business 60 days' written pre-suit notice of the claim.
A claimant who has recovered under a private action arising from a violation of the chapter more than once is not limited in a future recovery.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app sends automated outreach, places automated calls or sends automated texts.
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