Robocallers face a wider net in North Carolina

North Carolina is rewriting its telephone-solicitation law so unwanted sales calls cannot escape the rules just by crossing a state line. Starting Oct. 1, 2025, solicitations to North Carolina telephone subscribers would count as doing business in the state whether they are made from inside North Carolina or outside it.

That matters because the bill is aimed at the machinery behind the calls as much as the calls themselves. It widens the net around affiliates, automated dialing and recorded-message systems, and the registries consumers rely on to block repeat callers.

Closing the side doors

The rewrite of Article 4 of Chapter 75 defines an affiliate as a business or other legal entity that wholly or substantially owns, is owned by, or is under common ownership with a telephone solicitor. That gives state law a broader way to connect the caller with the company that may be trying to stay hidden behind a different name.

It also defines an automatic dialing and recorded message player as equipment that stores or generates telephone numbers and then plays a prerecorded message. And it expands the meaning of the Do Not Call Registry to include the Federal Trade Commission registry, other federal telemarketing registries, the Federal Communications Commission registry and any registry created by the North Carolina attorney general. Recorded votes show the bill cleared a floor vote.