On January 12, 2009, Paul D. S. Edwards filed a petition with the FCC for an expedited clarification and declaratory ruling regarding the Commission’s rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Specifically, Edwards asks the Commission to clarify whether a creditor may place autodialed or prerecorded message calls to a telephone number associated with wireless service that was provided to the creditor initially as a telephone number associated with landline service.

Edwards asserts that the Commission’s ruling permits debt collection calls to a wireless telephone number only when the consumer, in that instance, provides the wireless telephone number to the creditor. Edwards contends that when the creditor is initially provided a “landline” telephone number, and subsequently that “landline” number is ported to a cellular telephone, an established business relationship, “prior express consent,” or other exemption from section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the TCPA is not created. Edwards concludes that compliance with the TCPA requires that the consumer must have provided the creditor a telephone number assigned to a wireless service in order for calls to the wireless telephone number to be permissible.

A copy of the FCC’s notice is here.