YouMail: 883,512,200 robocalls in 2025, 567,426,700 in 2026 YTD. Baltimore has sat in the national top 10 metros. 46,490 DNC complaints — 753 per 100,000, up 10.7%.
Federal floor: TCPA $500 / $1,500.
Maryland layer — a real mini-TCPA:
- Stop the Spam Calls Act of 2023 (SB 90 / HB 37), Md. Code, Commercial Law § 14-4501 et seq., effective January 1, 2024. Amended April 25, 2024 (Ch. 214).
- Prior express written consent for automated-system or prerecorded calls, texts, and voicemails.
- Hours and identification rules; three-call style limits appear in the compliance guides (8 a.m.–8 p.m. is the window shops use).
- Area-code presumption: a call to a Maryland area code is presumed made to a Maryland resident.
- Private action (§ 14-4503, as amended 2024): enjoin the conduct and recover up to $500 or actual damages, whichever is greater. If the court finds the violation willful or knowing, it may award up to three times that amount — $1,500 on a $500 statutory count.
- The same violation is a Maryland CPA unfair practice. AG penalties on the CPA side are separately cited at $1,000 first / $5,000 later, with higher figures in some enforcement tables. Do not confuse AG fines with what you can plead.
What changed: The 2024 patch is the one that matters for your complaint: it wrote the $500 / treble private damages into § 14-4503. That is stackable in concept with a federal TCPA count on the same automated sales call.
Maryland recording warning: Maryland is a two-party consent state for intercepting calls. Do not secretly record. Log, screenshot, and use carrier call history instead.
Left on the table: 46,490 × $500 ≈ $23.2 million federal floor. × $1,500 ≈ $69.7 million. Stack a state $500/$1,500 count and the same complaint file can double.
Register at donotcall.gov. Save the area code they dialed. Use the Maryland Playbook.
This is a Q3 2026 TeleJustice Academy quarterly law update. Figures: YouMail Robocall Index (estimated volume); 2025 DNC complaint counts and per-capita rates from the FTC Data Book cycle. “Money left on the table” is complaint count × TCPA statutory minimums — an illustration, not a prediction. Robocall indexes include legal recorded calls. Only documented illegal calls and texts support a claim. Educational only. Not legal advice. TeleJustice Academy is not a law firm. Protect the file: donotcall.gov · state list where one exists · call log with date, time, number · screenshots · your state Playbook at telejusticeacademy.com and telejusticepro.com.