New York’s Department of State nearly doubled the Do Not Call fines it imposed in a single year. Its Division of Consumer Protection reported that the consent orders it executed in 2024 required close to $1.2 million in fines, compared with $618,000 in 2023, and it has kept signing consent orders through 2026 on matters it opened last year, with recent penalties ranging from $15,000 to $125,000. Yet when most companies think about Do Not Call exposure, they think about class action lawyers or the Federal Trade Commission. Very few realize that in New York, a division of the Department of State is the office actually investigating these calls and issuing the fines.
The law itself has been around since 2001. It sits in Section 399-z of the General Business Law and works much like the federal rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. It uses the same national registry, and once a number has been on that registry for 31 days, telemarketers cannot call it. What has changed is the size of the stick. In 2023 New York raised the maximum fine from $11,000 to $20,000 per violation. The Division also does not wait for consumers to come to it. It pulls New York complaints from the Federal Trade Commission’s database, and in 2024 alone it received more than 30,000 of them, sent 136 subpoenas to phone carriers to trace the numbers behind those calls, and opened 34 cases. In other words, an annoyed consumer filing a complaint online can turn into a carrier subpoena that leads straight back to your company.
The consent orders themselves are worth reading. They are not limited to the company that placed the calls. They reach all controlling persons, named or unnamed, and some are backed by personal guarantees from the principals. Several require documented consent to be contacted by one specific company, which is a problem for anyone relying on shared lead forms that list a long roster of marketing partners. Many also require the company to register as a telemarketer in New York before making any further calls. Having recently handled one of these matters ourselves, we can say the Division works the file carefully, from carrier records to consent documentation, and it is willing to resolve matters through a negotiated consent order.