Prerecorded cellular telephone calls from a debt collectoraren't allowed unless a consumer has agreed to allow them, afederal court ruled has ruled.

Those calls are covered by the Telephone Consumer ProtectionAct, which placed strong limits on phone and fax solicitations and.It was signed by into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.The law bans non-emergency prerecorded calls to a cell phone unlessthe call is “made with the prior express consent of the calledparty.”

The U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, in its recentruling, relied on a decision by the Federal CommunicationsCommission that if a customer gives permission to a company to callhim or her then that is an implied permission to a debt collectionfirm hired by the company.

The FCC ruled in 2007 that “calls placed by a third-party collector on behalf of [a] creditor are treated asif the creditor itself placed the call.”

The Financial Services Group of the law firm Ballard Spahr said there is a steady increase in litigation alleging violationsof the TCPA. “We continue to see an avalanche of class actionsagainst companies alleging TCPA violations.

In part, this is because penalties are draconian. Violations canyield damages equal to a minimum of the greater of $500 or actualdamages, triple damages for willful violations, and unlimited classaction liability,'' according to an analysis.

The case was Frausto v. IC System Inc. The FTC also has enacted new rules governing debt collection from the estate ofa credit union member.