ACA International Seeks Clarity on TCPA Issues in FCC Comments

Debt collection industry trade group ACA International late last year filed comments in response to a Petition for Declaratory Judgment and Rulemaking before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), brought by the Professional Association for Customer Engagement.

In the comments, ACA requested that the FCC clarify that the definition of “capacity” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) means the present ability of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to dial numbers randomly or sequentially at the time the call is made, not an ability arising at some unknown, future time.

ACA believes that the narrow, limited clarity requested in the PACE Petition will provide much-needed certainty regarding what is considered an ATDS under the TCPA.

A recent court ruling also tackled the notion of present capacity versus capability as it relates to automatic dialers.

ACA International has been successful in the past with direct requests to the FCC. Most notably, the FCC’s watershed ruling in 2008 was prompted by a petition from the group.