Virginia Automatic Dialing-Announcing Devices Act

A caller, a person who contacts or tries to contact a subscriber in Virginia by telephone, must not use an automatic dialing-announcing device (one that selects and dials telephone numbers and plays a prerecorded or synthesized voice message) to make a commercial telephone solicitation unless the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted or authorized receipt of the message, or a live operator first discloses the sending entity's name, the message's purpose, the kinds of goods or services promoted and, if applicable, that the message seeks payment or a commitment of funds, and obtains the subscriber's consent before the solicitation is delivered.

A commercial telephone solicitation is an unsolicited call to a subscriber by a person who has had no prior business or personal relationship with the subscriber, made to solicit the purchase or the consideration of the purchase of goods or services; calls the Commonwealth or a political subdivision initiates for exclusively public purposes are excluded.

A caller using such a device, or any other device playing a prerecorded or synthesized voice message, must design and operate it to disconnect within five seconds after the called party ends the call. A violation is a prohibited practice under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act and subject to all of that Act's enforcement provisions.

Under that Act, a person who suffers loss as the result of a violation may recover actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, which the trier of fact may raise for a willful violation to not more than three times actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs. On a willful violation, the Attorney General, an attorney for the Commonwealth or a local attorney may recover a civil penalty of not more than $2,500 for each violation. The chapter states no criminal penalty.