If you replied STOP to a marketing text and the sender kept messaging you anyway, federal law entitles you to between $500 and $1,500 for every single text they sent after your opt-out. That is not a typo, and it is not a theoretical figure buried in some obscure statute. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act treats each unauthorized message as a separate violation carrying $500 in statutory damages — and if the sender knew you had revoked consent and texted you regardless, a court can triple that to $1,500 per message. There is no cap on total damages. Ten texts after your STOP reply could mean $5,000 to $15,000 in your pocket, and companies like Kaiser Permanente and DSW have already paid millions to settle exactly these claims.
This is not a niche legal theory. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, 507 TCPA class actions were filed across the country — a 112 percent increase over the same period the previous year. The FCC also rolled out new opt-out rules in April 2025 that make it even harder for companies to claim ignorance when you tell them to stop. The legal landscape has shifted decisively in favor of consumers, and the money is real. This article covers exactly what the law requires after you reply STOP, how much you can collect, what the new FCC rules mean for your rights, recent settlements you may still be able to join, and step-by-step guidance on how to take action — whether through a class action, an individual lawsuit, or small claims court.
Table of Contents
- How Much Can You Get Per Spam Text After Replying STOP?
- What the FCC’s New Opt-Out Rules Mean for Your STOP Reply
- Recent Settlements Prove Companies Are Paying Up
- How to Take Legal Action Against Spam Texters
- Quiet Hours Violations and When Damages Automatically Triple
- What Evidence You Need to Preserve Right Now
- Where TCPA Enforcement Is Heading
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Can You Get Per Spam Text After Replying STOP?
The TCPA’s damage structure is straightforward and punishing for violators. Every text message sent without proper consent — or after consent has been revoked — is a standalone violation worth $500 in statutory damages. When a court finds the violation was willful or knowing, that figure jumps to $1,500 per message. Replying STOP is one of the clearest possible forms of revoking consent, so companies that continue texting after receiving that reply have an extraordinarily difficult time arguing the violation was accidental. As the Ginsburg Law Group noted in a February 2026 analysis, replying STOP is a legally recognized revocation of consent, and any marketing text sent after that revocation constitutes a separate TCPA violation. To put this in concrete terms: suppose you reply STOP to a retailer’s promotional texts and they send you twelve more messages over the following month. At the baseline statutory rate, that is $6,000.
If a court determines the company knew you had opted out — which is almost always provable since automated systems log STOP replies — damages jump to $18,000. This is per person, and in class actions involving thousands of consumers, the math gets catastrophic for defendants quickly. The DSW shoe retailer learned this when it agreed to pay $4.42 million to settle claims that it continued sending marketing texts after consumers opted out. The total exposure if those cases had gone to trial would have been far higher. One important caveat: these statutory damages apply specifically to TCPA violations involving automated text messaging systems or prerecorded calls. If a human being personally typed and sent you a text message from their personal phone, the TCPA’s autodialer provisions may not apply, though state consumer protection laws might still offer recourse. The vast majority of commercial spam texts, however, are sent through automated platforms, which places them squarely within the statute’s reach.
What the FCC’s New Opt-Out Rules Mean for Your STOP Reply
The FCC’s updated TCPA Consent Revocation Rule, which took partial effect on April 11, 2025, significantly strengthened consumer protections around opt-out requests. Before these rules, some companies played games with how you were allowed to opt out — requiring you to call a specific number, visit a website, or follow a convoluted process. That era is over. under the new rules, businesses must honor opt-out requests through any reasonable channel, whether that is a text reply, an email, a voicemail, or a verbal request during a phone call. They cannot funnel you into a single method. The rule also codifies a list of standardized opt-out keywords that companies must recognize: STOP, QUIT, REVOKE, OPT OUT, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, and END. But the FCC went further — other reasonable words and phrases also count.
If you text back “take me off this list” or “don’t contact me again,” that is a valid opt-out even if it does not match one of the official keywords. Once your request is received, the business has 10 business days to process it. They are permitted to send one confirmation text — with no promotional content — within five minutes of receiving the opt-out, and nothing after that. However, one provision consumers should be aware of has been delayed. The so-called “revoke-all” rule, which would have meant that a single STOP reply applied to all messages from a given company across every topic and product line, has been pushed back to January 31, 2027, while the FCC reviews whether modifications are needed. For now, this means your STOP reply definitively covers the specific messaging program you responded to, but the company might argue it does not apply to a separate texting campaign they run under a different short code. This loophole is exactly the kind of thing the revoke-all provision was designed to close, but until it takes effect, keep records of every opt-out you send across different numbers from the same company.
Recent Settlements Prove Companies Are Paying Up
These are not hypothetical damages. Major corporations have been writing large checks over exactly this conduct. Kaiser Permanente agreed to a $10.5 million settlement in 2025 to resolve claims that it sent marketing texts to consumers who had already replied STOP. The class period covered texts sent between January 2021 and August 2025, and class members could receive up to $75 per qualifying text. The claims deadline was February 12, 2026, so that particular settlement is now closed — but it illustrates the scale of liability companies face and the real payouts consumers receive. DSW, operating under its parent company Designer Brands, settled for $4.42 million after consumers alleged the shoe retailer kept pushing promotional texts even after opt-out requests.
Final approval was granted on July 31, 2025. In a separate case, Blue Cross Blue Shield paid $1.6 million to resolve claims that it robocalled wrong numbers — a related but distinct TCPA violation that underscores how broadly the statute applies. These cases represent just a fraction of the TCPA enforcement activity happening right now. With over 500 class actions filed in Q1 2025 alone, the pipeline of active litigation is enormous, and new settlements are being announced regularly. What makes these cases notable is that the defendant companies are not fly-by-night operations. They are household names with sophisticated legal departments that understood the law and got sued anyway. If Kaiser Permanente’s compliance team could not prevent a $10.5 million settlement, the promotional text you keep getting from a regional car dealership or an online retailer is almost certainly vulnerable to the same legal claims.
How to Take Legal Action Against Spam Texters
You have three primary options for pursuing a TCPA claim, and each involves tradeoffs worth understanding. The first and most common path is joining or initiating a class action lawsuit. TCPA attorneys typically work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing upfront and the lawyer takes a percentage of any recovery. This is the lowest-effort option for consumers — you provide your evidence, the attorneys handle the litigation, and if the case settles or wins at trial, you receive your share. The downside is that individual payouts in class actions are often lower than what you might recover on your own because the settlement fund is divided among all class members and the attorneys take their cut. The second option is filing an individual lawsuit with a TCPA attorney, also typically on contingency.
This makes sense when you have extensive documentation of repeated violations — dozens of texts after a clear STOP reply, for example — and the per-message damages would add up to a meaningful individual recovery. An attorney can calculate whether your specific case justifies individual litigation versus class participation. The third option, often overlooked, is small claims court. You do not need an attorney to file in small claims court, and the process is designed to be accessible to non-lawyers. If a company sent you a handful of texts after you opted out, you can file a claim yourself for $500 to $1,500 per message. The filing fee is usually under $100, and many small claims courts have simplified procedures. The limitation here is that small claims courts have maximum damage caps — typically $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the state — so if your claim exceeds that threshold, you would either need to reduce it or move to a higher court.
Quiet Hours Violations and When Damages Automatically Triple
Beyond the standard $500-per-violation framework, the TCPA contains a provision that many consumers do not know about: quiet hours restrictions. Spam texts sent before 8:00 AM or after 9:00 PM in the recipient’s local time zone are automatic TCPA violations carrying the enhanced $1,500 penalty — regardless of whether you previously gave consent. This means that even if you technically signed up for a company’s text alerts and have not yet opted out, a promotional message that arrives at 6:45 AM on a Saturday is a $1,500 violation. This matters because automated marketing platforms often operate across time zones, and companies frequently blast messages at times optimized for engagement without properly accounting for where each recipient actually lives. If you have been receiving texts during quiet hours, document the exact timestamps carefully.
Your phone’s message log will show the time received in your local zone, and this is strong evidence. Combined with post-STOP violations, quiet hours texts can dramatically increase the total damages in a case. A company that sends you five texts after your STOP reply, two of which arrived after 9:00 PM, faces exposure of $3,500 for the three daytime texts (at the $500 willful rate, tripled for the two nighttime ones) — but more realistically, if all are deemed willful, the total reaches $7,500 for just five messages. One limitation to be aware of: quiet hours rules apply specifically to telemarketing calls and texts. Purely informational messages — such as appointment reminders, fraud alerts, or delivery notifications — may not trigger quiet hours violations, though they can still violate the TCPA on other grounds if sent without consent.
What Evidence You Need to Preserve Right Now
If you are still receiving texts after replying STOP, the single most important thing you can do is preserve evidence before anything gets deleted. Take screenshots of every spam text you receive, making sure the date, time, and sender’s number or short code are visible. Screenshot your own STOP reply and the timestamp when you sent it. If the company sent a confirmation acknowledging your opt-out, screenshot that too.
Keep a running log of every subsequent message with dates and times. The Eleventh Circuit has ruled that even one unsolicited text message is sufficient injury to establish standing to sue, so do not assume your case is too small. That said, more messages mean more damages, and clear documentation of the timeline — your STOP reply followed by continued texts — is what makes these cases straightforward for attorneys to evaluate. Store your screenshots somewhere they will not be lost if you switch phones, such as a cloud backup or email to yourself.
Where TCPA Enforcement Is Heading
The trajectory of TCPA enforcement is sharply upward. The 112 percent increase in class action filings from Q1 2024 to Q1 2025 reflects both growing consumer awareness and a plaintiff’s bar that recognizes the statute’s generous damage provisions. The pending revoke-all rule, if it takes effect as scheduled in January 2027, will close one of the last remaining loopholes companies exploit to justify continued texting after an opt-out.
State legislatures are also getting involved — Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act and other state-level statutes now layer additional penalties on top of federal TCPA damages. For consumers, the practical takeaway is that the legal infrastructure to punish spam texters has never been stronger, and the financial incentives to take action have never been higher. Companies that ignore STOP replies are not just being annoying — they are generating liability with every single message they send.
Conclusion
Federal law is unambiguous: once you reply STOP, any additional marketing text is a violation worth $500 to $1,500 in statutory damages per message, with no cap on total recovery. The FCC’s April 2025 rules reinforced this by requiring companies to accept opt-outs through any reasonable channel and process them within 10 business days. Major companies including Kaiser Permanente and DSW have already paid millions in settlements for exactly this conduct, and the pace of TCPA litigation is accelerating rapidly.
If you are still getting spam texts after opting out, take screenshots of everything, note the dates and times, and consult a TCPA attorney — most work on contingency, so there is no cost to you unless you recover money. You can also pursue claims in small claims court without a lawyer. The law is on your side, the damages are substantial, and the companies sending those texts are betting you will not bother to act. Prove them wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does replying STOP actually create a legal obligation for the sender?
Yes. Under both the TCPA and the FCC’s 2025 consent revocation rules, replying STOP is a legally recognized revocation of consent. The sender must stop all marketing messages within 10 business days. Any text sent after that is a separate violation.
What if the company uses a different phone number to keep texting me after I reply STOP?
Switching numbers to circumvent an opt-out makes the violation even more clearly willful, which supports the $1,500-per-message enhanced damages rather than the $500 baseline. Document the pattern and bring it to an attorney.
Do I need to hire a lawyer to sue for spam texts?
No. You can file in small claims court on your own with no attorney, which is viable for smaller claims. For larger cases or class actions, TCPA attorneys typically work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing unless you win.
Can I sue over just one unwanted text?
Yes. The Eleventh Circuit has ruled that a single unsolicited text message constitutes sufficient injury to establish standing for a lawsuit. One text equals one $500 to $1,500 violation.
What are the TCPA quiet hours, and do they increase damages?
Marketing texts sent before 8:00 AM or after 9:00 PM in your local time zone are automatic violations carrying $1,500 in damages each, regardless of whether you previously consented to receive messages.
Is there a deadline to file a TCPA claim?
The statute of limitations for TCPA claims is four years from the date of each violation. However, evidence degrades over time and phone records may be harder to obtain, so acting sooner is always better.