What Is Prior Express Written Consent?
Also known as: PEWC
Prior express written consent is a signed or e-signed agreement in which a person authorizes a specific business to send them marketing calls or texts using automated dialing technology or prerecorded or artificial voices. It must exist before the contact, and the business must be able to prove it.
Prior express written consent is a signed or e-signed agreement in which a person authorizes a specific business to send them marketing calls or texts using automated dialing technology or prerecorded or artificial voices. It must exist before the contact, and the business must be able to prove it.
Prior Express Written Consent explained
Under the federal telemarketing consent rules, the agreement has to be written, though an electronic signature such as a web form submission can qualify. It must identify the business making the contact, include the number to be contacted, and clearly say the person is authorizing marketing sent with automated technology. It also must state that signing is not a condition of buying anything. A purchased list or a vague privacy-policy clause does not meet the standard, and the business carries the burden of proving the consent exists.
Wholesalers meet this rule most often through text messaging and prerecorded or ringless voicemail drops. Numbers skip-traced from public records carry no consent at all, which is why cold outreach built on them either relies on live, manually placed calls scrubbed against do-not-call data or collects consent first through a form the owner actually completes. Inbound leads from a landing page can supply real consent if the form language is right and the submission is logged with a timestamp, the number, and the wording the person saw.
Misreadings are expensive. Consent attaches to the business the person actually authorized, so a bought lead stands or falls on the language the person saw. Consent can also be withdrawn, and the safe practice is to honor an opt-out quickly, from any channel, across every campaign the business runs. Finally, a live person dialing by hand is governed mainly by do-not-call and calling-hour rules rather than this one, which is why teams should confirm with counsel how their dialer setup is classified instead of assuming.
Example
A seller fills out an online form asking for a cash offer on an inherited house. The form includes a plainly worded checkbox authorizing the wholesaler to text and call that number with automated technology, and it states that agreeing is optional. The system stores the timestamp, the number, and the exact wording, so the consent can be shown later.
Related VA Horizon resources
Keep learning the language of wholesaling
Frequently Asked Questions
Put the playbook to work
VA Horizon places trained cold calling VAs and builds the systems behind Prior Express Written Consent and the rest of your wholesaling pipeline. Book a 15-minute call to see how it works.
Recommended next steps