The Filing Trend, In Numbers
TCPA class-action litigation is not a background risk in 2025 and 2026, it is an accelerating one. Q1 2025 alone produced 507 TCPA class-action filings, a 112% increase year over year. By September 2025, year-to-date filings had reached 2,128, and September itself saw 224 filings, a 283% spike compared to September 2024. Nearly 80% of all TCPA lawsuits filed today are class actions rather than individual claims, and the average class settlement exceeds $6.6 million. None of this is MCA-specific litigation data, but MCA cold-calling and texting operations sit directly inside the category of business this filing surge is hitting.
Why UCC Dialing and Cold-Calling Shops Carry the Most Direct Exposure
The channels most exposed here are exactly the ones this research documents as core to how ISOs source deals: UCC list dialing and live-transfer sourcing calls, both of which depend on reaching numbers the caller did not obtain direct, verifiable consent to contact. A shop built heavily on cold-dialing purchased or scraped lists is operating in the same category of activity driving the filing numbers above, whether or not that specific shop has been named in a suit yet.
SMS Carries the Same Consent Rules as Calls
This is the point most worth slowing down on, given how much of the industry is shifting outreach toward text messages: TCPA consent requirements apply to SMS sent to a wireless number the same way they apply to calls. A text message is not a lower-risk workaround for a shop trying to avoid the compliance overhead of cold calling. If anything, the same filing surge documented above is a warning that any outbound channel reaching a wireless number without proper, documented consent carries real litigation exposure, calls and texts alike.
That distinction matters directly for VA Horizon's own model: every business funding conversation we run happens over SMS between a Human + AI SDR and a prospect who opted into that conversation, with the entire exchange preserved as a transcript. The channel being text-based does not exempt it from consent requirements, it changes what a defensible consent record looks like, and a documented, retrievable transcript is a stronger record than a verbal claim of consent ever is.
What "Documented Consent" Should Actually Mean
Given the filing volume above, a verbal or assumed consent posture is a weak position to defend if a complaint or suit arrives. What holds up is a specific, retrievable record: when consent was given, for what kind of contact (call or text), and from what number. A shop that can produce that record for a specific contact is in a fundamentally different position than one that can only assert its process was compliant. This is the same principle behind the receipts-backed billing model VA Horizon runs on: a documented transcript beats a promise, whether the question is about billing accuracy or about proving consent.
Questions to Ask About Your Own Calling and Texting Program
- Do you have a specific, dated consent record for every number your team calls or texts, or only a general belief that the list was sourced compliantly?
- If your outreach includes SMS, does your consent record specifically cover text messages, not just phone calls?
- Do you scrub against Do Not Call status before dialing or texting, and can you show when that scrub last ran?
- If you outsource calling or texting to a vendor, can they produce a specific consent record on request, not just a general compliance claim?
- Given the average $6.6 million class settlement figure, does your current outreach volume and list quality justify the exposure you are carrying?
What this means for you
- TCPA class-action filings hit 507 in Q1 2025 alone (up 112% year over year) and a 283% spike in September 2025, with nearly 80% of all TCPA suits filed as class actions.
- The average TCPA class settlement exceeds $6.6 million, a number that changes the calculus on any high-volume calling or texting program.
- SMS carries the same TCPA consent requirements as phone calls. Texting is not a lower-compliance-risk substitute for cold calling.
- A documented, retrievable consent record for a specific contact is a materially stronger position than an asserted compliance process, for calls and texts alike.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Lexology, TCPA class actions continue to skyrocket
- Lexology, TCPA class actions just spiked 283%
- ActiveProspect, TCPA lawsuits explode in 2025