Verification · November 3, 2026
Is this TCPA demand letter real?
Almost certainly, and you can know for sure before the hour is out without speaking to anyone. The hour runs in four blocks: ten minutes on the letter itself, twenty against your own phone records, fifteen on the sender, and five writing down what you found. Do them in that order. Each block makes the next one shorter, and the note you finish with is the first document in the file.
By the end of the first hour you should be able to say three things in writing: the letter describes calls that my business made or paid for, or it does not; the sender exists, or it does not; and the deadline is this date. Everything after this page assumes you have those three lines. The order below is deliberate. The calls come before the sender because the calls are what make a TCPA claim real; a sender that is awkward to find can still hold a good claim, and a sender that is easy to find can still hold a bad one.
| Minute | Do | You now know |
|---|---|---|
| 10 to 20 | Read the letter with a pen and mark four things | What is claimed, under which law, for how much, by when |
| 20 to 40 | Pull your own call and text records for the listed dates | Whether the calls happened |
| 40 to 55 | Type the sender's domain, search the registry | Whether the sender exists |
| 55 to 60 | Write the six-line note | The file has its first document |
Minute 10 to 20: the letter, with a pen
Read it twice. The first time as the owner, which you cannot help. The second time as a clerk, marking four things in the margin. The statute: 47 U.S.C. § 227, often with 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 for Do Not Call matters and, for a Florida recipient, Fla. Stat. § 501.059. The list: each call or text with a date, a time and the number. The arithmetic: a count of violations multiplied by $500, or $1,500 where the sender alleges the calls were willful. The deadline: the date by which they want a reply. A genuine letter has all four because it was assembled from the recipient's phone records. Write the deadline on the front of the envelope now; it is the date every later step runs from, and the deadline explains what it does and does not mean.
Minute 20 to 40: your own records
This is the block that answers the question. Take the dates from the list and open whatever made the calls: the office phone system, the dialler, the texting platform, the CRM that logs outbound contact. Export the days in question rather than scrolling, so you have a file. If the numbers and dates are there, the letter is describing something your business did, and whether a scam exists somewhere in the world no longer matters to you. If your calls are placed by a vendor, a lead generator or an outsourced centre, the records are theirs and the liability is still yours; email them the dates and ask for the logs, and note the time you asked.
If nothing matches anywhere, do not conclude yet. Check the four-year window, check old numbers your business has used, and check with every vendor who has ever dialled for you. A list that matches nothing after all that is rare, and it belongs in the note at minute 55 as a plain statement of what you searched.
Minute 40 to 55: the sender, briefly
Type the domain printed on the letter into the browser yourself, and search the exact company name in the corporate registry of the state in its address; Florida's is search.sunbiz.org. Two results are enough for now: the site belongs to the company named on the letter, and the registry has a filing for it. A sender that is not a law firm is normal. The statute gives the person who was called the right to pursue the claim, alone or through a company, and the lawyer appears when a matter is filed. The full method, with PACER and the bar directory, is on who sent it, and it can wait until the note is written.
Minute 55 to 60: the six-line note
Open a document and write six lines: the date the letter arrived and how; the deadline on it; the reference number; whether the listed calls appear in your records, and whose records; whether the sender's site and registry entry match the letterhead; and who in the business now knows. Date the note and save it with the scan of the letter. This is the first entry in the file, and it is the thing your lawyer will read before anything else.
What the hour tells you
Calls found and sender found: the letter is real. Move to the anatomy of the letter to read what each section is doing, then to before you call anyone. Calls found and sender hard to pin down: the claim is still real, because the calls are the claim; proceed in writing only, and finish the sender work on who sent it before you reply. Nothing found anywhere, after vendors and old numbers, and a letter that wants payment now by a method you cannot reverse: keep the letter, pay nothing, and raise it in your first conversation with a lawyer as a possible fraud.
Short answers
What if I cannot find the calls in my own records?
Look wider before you conclude anything. The TCPA reaches back four years, so the dates may predate your current phone system. Calls made by a lead generator, an outsourced centre or an affiliate on your behalf will be in their records, not yours; ask them for the dates in the letter. Only when nobody can find the calls anywhere does the letter become a different kind of problem.
Does the whole hour have to happen on day one?
It should. The deadline on the letter is usually weeks away, but every later step, the lawyer conversation, the written reply, the settlement number, is built on what the hour tells you. An hour on day one saves days later.
Can I skip the hour and send the letter straight to a lawyer?
You can. Their first question will be whether the calls happened, and their second will be who made them. Arriving with both answers written down turns the first billed hour into a fifteen-minute call.
The letter came by email, not post. Does that change the hour?
No. Print it, then run the same four blocks. The only extra rule is that you type the sender’s domain into the browser by hand rather than clicking anything in the message.