15 U.S.C. § 6101
Section 6101 · Findings
This is the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 30 court decisions — leading case McGregor v. Chierico (2000)
Most recently applied in FTC v. Gary Hewitt (May 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Telemarketing differs from other sales activities in that it can be carried out by sellers across State lines without direct contact with the consumer. Telemarketers also can be very mobile, easily moving from State to State.
(2) Interstate telemarketing fraud has become a problem of such magnitude that the resources of the Federal Trade Commission are not sufficient to ensure adequate consumer protection from such fraud.
(3) Consumers and others are estimated to lose $40 billion a year in telemarketing fraud.
(4) Consumers are victimized by other forms of telemarketing deception and abuse.
(5) Consequently, Congress should enact legislation that will offer consumers necessary protection from telemarketing deception and abuse.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Short Title
Section 1 of Pub. L. 103 297 provided that: “This Act [enacting this chapter and section 9b of Title 7, Agriculture, and amending section 52 of this title] may be cited as the ‘Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act’.”