Start / Ignore it?
Can I just ignore it?
You can. Nobody will stop you. Here is what happens next if you do, so that it is a decision and not a hope.
What the deadline passing does
The letter is the pre-litigation step. The sender has documented calls, worked out a figure, and offered to close the matter for it. The deadline is the date that offer stops being the offer. After it, the usual path is referral: the file goes to a lawyer who files TCPA cases. Companies that send demand letters at scale have those relationships already, because the letter only works if the referral is real.
What a filed case does
Three things change at once.
The number. The demand was priced on the calls in the letter. A complaint asks for statutory damages on every violation that can be proved, and discovery is how they get proved. Your dialer records, your lead files, your vendor's logs. Every call made the same way inside the four-year period under 28 U.S.C. § 1658. The letter counted what they could see. The lawsuit counts what you did. The sum is on how much trouble am I in?
Willfulness. The letter told you. Calls made after it, and a failure to respond to it, are the kind of facts a court looks at when deciding whether to treble damages from $500 to $1,500 per violation under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3) and § 227(c)(5). Ignoring the notice is not nothing. It is evidence of knowing.
The cost of defending. You will need a lawyer whether you win or lose. Defence through discovery is paid by the hour, and the bill is routinely larger than the demand was. Good defence counsel will often advise resolving, and you then pay the resolution plus the fees for being advised to.
What might happen instead
Honesty requires this part. Some letters are not followed up. A sender may have a weak file, or a thin referral pipeline, or more letters than lawyers. You cannot tell which from the outside, and the four-year limitations period means "nothing happened by month three" is not "nothing will happen". A business that ignores the letter is betting its whole campaign history on the sender's capacity. Some win that bet. They do not know in advance that they will.
Ignoring it is a bet. Know what you are betting.
The honest answer
If the calls are in your logs and you cannot show written consent, the cheapest way out is the one on the letter. Verify the sender, check the numbers, negotiate the figure, settle in writing with a release. Ignoring it turns a fixed cost into an open one.
The middle path
Ignoring and paying are not the only options. A written response that asks for the evidence behind the listed calls, or asks for time, or denies on a specific ground you can document, keeps the matter in the pre-litigation stage without conceding anything. It costs a few lines and a stamp. It also tells you something: a sender who answers with recordings and logs has a file; one who answers with another deadline may not. Either way you learn more than silence teaches.
If you do ignore it
At least do the day one things. Stop contacting the listed numbers. Preserve every record. Note the dates. Tell one other person in the business. The full list is on what to do today. If a complaint is served later, you want to be the business with clean records and a timeline, not the one that binned the letter and carried on. And put a note in your calendar for when the four years run out on the oldest call. Until then it is open.
If your letter came from one particular sender
Quick test: type the website on the letter into your browser yourself. Same name as the sender? Fine. Different name, or no site at all? Find out why before you do anything else. The letter itself usually says how the sender wants to be answered.
Short version
- What happens if I ignore a TCPA demand letter?
- After the deadline, the matter is typically referred to a lawyer who may file a complaint. A filed case can claim statutory damages on every violation found in discovery, not just the calls in the letter, and the letter itself becomes evidence that the later conduct was knowing.
- Do they actually sue?
- Some do, some do not, and you cannot tell from outside. The limitations period is four years, so silence for a few months is not an answer. Treat ignoring the letter as a bet on the sender’s capacity, with your whole calling history as the stake.
- Does ignoring it make the damages higher?
- It can. Courts can increase damages to $1,500 per violation for willful or knowing conduct, and a demand letter is notice. Calls made after it and a refusal to engage are the usual facts relied on.
- Is there a way to respond without paying or admitting anything?
- Yes. A short written response that acknowledges receipt, asks for the evidence or for time, and reserves all rights keeps the matter at the letter stage without conceding a fact.