DNC and litigator scrubbing — what each one protects you from
These get mentioned in the same breath and treated as one checkbox. They are not the same thing at all, and the difference is worth understanding before you buy a list from anybody.
The Do Not Call registry
The federal registry is a list of numbers whose owners have asked not to receive telemarketing calls. It is large, it is public, and the rules around it are specific about what kind of contact it covers and what exemptions exist.
What matters commercially is that being on the registry is a fact about a number, and how it affects you depends on the channel and what you are doing. Different kinds of outreach are treated differently, and the answer is not identical for a call, a text and a voicemail drop.
This is a genuine compliance question and it deserves an answer from a lawyer who knows your state, not from a list vendor's marketing page. What a vendor can honestly tell you is whether the scrub was run.
TCPA litigators
This is the sharper risk. A small number of people bring TCPA claims as a matter of routine — the statute provides for damages per contact, and a list of known litigators exists precisely because contacting one is expensive in a way that contacting an annoyed homeowner is not.
There is no judgement call here and no channel where it becomes acceptable. A known litigator is removed from the file outright, not flagged for you to decide about later, because a flag is something a busy person imports past at two in the morning.
This is also why a list with no provenance is a genuine hazard rather than just poor value. If nobody can tell you whether the scrub was run, it was not.
What we do
Every file runs against litigator and DNC data before it is delivered, and known litigators are removed rather than marked.
We do not present that as compliance advice or as a shield. You remain responsible for TCPA, for your state's calling and texting rules, and for the hours you contact people at. A scrubbed list makes the obvious mistakes harder; it does not make the rules go away.
And nothing about a scrub tells you whether the person wants to hear from you, which is a separate and much more useful question.
Questions people ask
Does a scrubbed list mean I can text anyone on it?
No. It means the known litigators are gone and the DNC data has been run. Consent, timing, content and your state's rules are still yours, and they are the parts that decide whether a campaign is lawful.
Are DNC numbers removed from my file entirely?
DNC status is handled as part of the scrub before delivery. The hard exclusion — the one with no exceptions in any channel — is the litigator removal.
What happens if someone asks me to stop?
Stop, on every channel, immediately, and record it somewhere your next campaign will read. Re-contacting someone who has opted out is the most avoidable claim there is.
Related
Pick a county and a list type, or send your own addresses. Mobile numbers only, litigator and DNC scrubbed, and anything the county does not hold is credited back.