The text messages a seller may send, and how to stop them

A text is a call for these purposes

The rules people associate with robocalls are written about telephone calls, which makes readers assume texts sit outside them. They do not.

The regulation says so in its own definition. For the exemptions it lists, "the term 'call' includes a text message, including a short message service (SMS) call".

The revocation provisions go further and name texts directly, addressing "calls or text messages" and "robocalls and robotexts" side by side.

The practical effect is that a marketing text to a mobile number sits inside the same consent structure as an automated marketing phone call.

That matters for anyone who handed a phone number to a health or wellness seller during an intake, because the messages that follow are governed by these rules rather than by the seller's own preferences.

What counts as consent, and the sentence sellers cannot ignore

Marketing calls and texts using an automatic dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice generally need prior express written consent.

The regulation defines that term rather than leaving it to a checkbox. It means "an agreement, in writing, bearing the signature of the person called that clearly authorizes the seller" to deliver advertisements or telemarketing messages by those means, and it must identify the telephone number authorized.

The agreement has to carry a clear and conspicuous disclosure of two things. That signing authorizes those messages. The second is in the rule's own words. "The person is not required to sign the agreement (directly or indirectly), or agree to enter into such an agreement as a condition of purchasing any property, goods, or services."

That second disclosure is the one worth looking for at checkout. Consent to marketing messages cannot lawfully be presented as the price of buying the product.

Signature is not limited to ink. The term includes "an electronic or digital form of signature", to the extent that form is valid under applicable federal law or state contract law.

Revoking consent: any reasonable method

Consent, once given, is not permanent. A called party may revoke it "by using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender".

Certain methods are pre-approved. One is an automated interactive voice or key press opt-out mechanism on a call. Another is a website or telephone number the caller designated for opt-outs. A third is a reply text using stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe.

Each of those "constitutes a reasonable means per se to revoke consent", and where one is used consent is definitively revoked and no further robocalls or robotexts may be sent.

Other words still work. If a reply uses different wording, "the caller must treat that reply text as a valid revocation request if a reasonable person would understand those words to have conveyed a request to revoke consent."

There is a deadline. Requests made in any reasonable manner "must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request."

A sender may not pick the only door

One sentence in this rule undoes a common practice, and it is short.

Callers or senders of text messages covered by the relevant paragraphs "may not designate an exclusive means to request revocation of consent."

So a message telling you that the only way to stop is to log into an account, or to reply with one specific word and nothing else, does not narrow your options under the rule.

The rule then backs that up with an evidentiary presumption. Some other means, such as a voicemail or an email to a number or address intended to reach the caller, "creates a rebuttable presumption that the consumer has revoked consent". The presumption arises once the called party produces evidence the request was made.

Where that presumption is contested, a totality of circumstances analysis decides whether the request was conveyed in a reasonable manner.

There is also a provision for senders whose systems cannot receive replies. A texting protocol that does not allow reply texts requires a clear and conspicuous disclosure on each message that two-way texting is unavailable, plus reasonable alternative ways to revoke.

The one message they may still send after you say stop

Anyone who has replied stop and then received one more text has met this paragraph.

A one-time text confirming a revocation request does not violate the prohibitions, but only under conditions.

It must merely confirm the revocation, must be the only additional message sent after the request, and "does not include any marketing or promotional information".

Timing carries a presumption. "If the confirmation text is sent within five minutes of receipt, it will be presumed to fall within the consumer's prior express consent." A longer delay puts the burden on the sender to show the delay was reasonable.

One clarification is permitted inside that message. Where the recipient consented to several categories of messages, the confirmation may ask whether the revocation covers all of them, while the sender must stop all messages for which consent is required.

The list a company has to keep about you

Separately from consent, a request not to be called creates a record-keeping duty.

On receiving such a request, the person or entity "must record the request and place the subscriber's name, if provided, and telephone number on the do-not-call list at the time the request is made."

The honoring period is a reasonable time not exceeding ten business days from receipt.

Outsourcing does not shift responsibility. Where the requests are recorded or maintained by someone else, "the person or entity on whose behalf the call is made will be liable for any failures to honor the do-not-call request."

Sharing the request is restricted rather than assumed. Prior express permission is needed to share or forward a consumer's do-not-call request to a party other than the entity the call was made for, or an affiliate.

Callers must also identify themselves: the individual caller's name, the name of the entity the call is for, and a telephone number or address for contact, which may not be a premium rate number.

The healthcare exception, and why it reads backwards

One exemption is directly relevant to anyone receiving messages from a clinical service, and it inverts two of the rules above.

Calls and texts by or on behalf of healthcare providers are exempted from one prohibition, subject to eight conditions.

The conditions are tight. Messages go only to the wireless number the patient provided. They must state the provider's name and contact information. They are strictly limited to a listed set of purposes, including appointment confirmations and reminders, wellness checkups, pre-operative instructions, lab results, post-discharge follow-up and prescription notifications.

They must contain no telemarketing, solicitation or advertising, and no accounting, billing, debt-collection or other financial content. Voice calls run generally a minute or less and texts a hundred and sixty characters or less.

Volume is capped at one message per patient per day, up to three combined per week.

Then the two inversions. For these messages, replying stop is described as the route to opt out, "which will be the exclusive means by which consumers may opt out of such messages". And "A healthcare provider must honor opt-out requests immediately."

So the general rule bars a sender from naming an exclusive opt-out route and allows ten business days. Inside this exemption the route is named and the deadline is immediate. Reading one rule and assuming the other applies gets both wrong.

What to do with this, and what it does not settle

For a reader, three things are worth carrying away.

Look for the not-a-condition-of-purchase disclosure when a form asks to text you. Its absence is the clearest sign that what is being collected is not the consent this rule describes.

Reply with a plain stop, and keep the message. The reply is a per se reasonable revocation, and the rule makes the sender responsible for honoring it within ten business days.

If replying is impossible, use another route and keep evidence of it. That produces a rebuttable presumption in your favor rather than nothing.

Two limits on this article. Only this one section was read, in full. Nothing here was checked against any seller's actual messaging, and no enforcement action, court decision or private right of action was researched, so this describes the rule rather than what happens when it is broken.

Sources

Each document below is named as it names itself, with the date printed on that document rather than the day it was read.

1. Title 47 Code of Federal Regulations section 64.1200, Delivery restrictions, read for the consent definition at paragraph (f)(9), the revocation provisions at (a)(10) through (a)(12), the healthcare exemption at (a)(9)(iv) and the do-not-call recording duty at (d)(3) — Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Office of the Federal Register, August 2025