Reported / Citable
Background
Vicki Coffey, an Arizona resident on the national do-not-call registry since 2004, received at least six calls and two text messages from an employee of Fast Easy Offer (FEO), a real estate company. The messages asked whether she had “given up on selling” her property. FEO’s business model involved purchasing homes below market value and, more commonly, funneling homeowners to traditional real estate brokerage services — with 9 out of 10 respondents allegedly becoming brokerage clients rather than direct sellers to FEO.
Coffey filed a putative class action under the TCPA, which prohibits telephone solicitations to numbers on the do-not-call registry. The district court dismissed the case, holding that FEO’s messages were not “telephone solicitations” because they did not expressly encourage the purchase of services.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the messages qualified as telephone solicitations under the TCPA’s plain text. The statute defines a telephone solicitation as “the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services.” The court focused on a key textual point: the word “purpose” modifies “initiation,” not the call or message itself. This means courts must consider the caller’s purpose in initiating the communication, not just whether the message’s content explicitly mentions a product or service.
Building on its earlier decision in Chesbro v. Best Buy, which held that an explicit mention of a good or service is not required where the implication is clear from context, the court concluded that FEO’s purpose in initiating the calls was to solicit the purchase of real estate brokerage services. The complaint alleged that the vast majority of respondents became brokerage clients, making it plausible that encouraging the purchase of brokerage services was one purpose of the outreach.
Key Takeaways
- Under the TCPA, courts must look at the caller’s purpose in initiating a call or message — not just whether the message itself explicitly pitches a product or service.
- A message that does not mention any good or service can still be a “telephone solicitation” if the caller’s underlying purpose is to encourage a purchase, and the context makes that purpose clear.
- Real estate companies that cold-call homeowners asking about selling their property may be making “telephone solicitations” subject to the do-not-call rules, even if the initial message frames the company as a buyer rather than a service provider.
- The decision reinforces Chesbro v. Best Buy‘s holding that TCPA analysis must consider the full context and business model, not just the four corners of the message.
Why It Matters
This decision has immediate implications for real estate investors, “we buy houses” companies, and similar businesses that cold-call or text homeowners. Many of these companies frame their outreach as purchase offers rather than service solicitations, assuming that positions them outside the TCPA’s telephone solicitation definition. The Ninth Circuit has now made clear that if the real business model involves funneling respondents into brokerage or other services, the initial outreach qualifies as a telephone solicitation — subjecting the caller to do-not-call restrictions and potential statutory damages of up to $500 per violation.
More broadly, the decision signals that courts will look through the surface framing of unsolicited communications to the caller’s actual commercial purpose. Any company whose cold-calling strategy ultimately aims to sell services — even if the initial message doesn’t mention those services — should evaluate its do-not-call compliance.