Well a major bank is facing up to $3.3 BILLION in TCPA exposure after using a lead generator to call third-party data leads.

Lead generator gets major bank into TCPA hot water.

Tale as old as time.

There is a reason I fly around to all these lead generation conference and get on stage and talk about the TCPA.

Remember all those times you’ve heard me say TCPA risk is the biggest threat to your business if you’re buying third-party leads?

Well here’s another example.

In Anthony v. Federal Savings Bank, et al, 2025 WL 2712172 (N.D. Ill Sept. 23, 2025) the court certified a nationwide class action against three defendants– FSB, its corporate parent, and the marketer– FDE Marketing Group, LLC– that placed the calls.

FDE apparently bought the leads it was calling on from unidentified third-party lead providers (or perhaps just one provider) but we will get to that in a second.

For now the classes that were certified are:

(1) “National DNC Class” defined as “All persons within the United States whose phone numbers ( ) are included in the Ytel call detail records of FDE Marketing Group, LLC (“FDE”) produced in this matter, and (ii) received more than one call from FDE in any twelve-month period while their phone numbers were registered on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least 30 days.”; and

(2) “Transfer Subclass” defined as “All members of the National DNC Class whose call resulted in a transfer to The Federal Savings Bank (“FSB”) or National Bancorp Holdings, Inc. (“NBH”).” (Id.).

Now right out of the gate certification should be a long shot here because the definitions do not exclude calls made to non-residential numbers, to customers with whom defendants had an EBR or those that provided consent.

While consent issues are sort of dealt with in the opinion, neither residential usage or EBR issues are addressed–suggesting the defendant simply missed those issues altogether. Not good.

But let’s focus on the background facts real quick:

From about January 2020 to January 2022, he received “numerous unsolicited calls to his phone asking for someone named ‘Needle Dee,’ ” a name he does not and has never used. (Compl. ¶¶ 32, 33). After receiving three such unsolicited calls in April 2021, Plaintiff “feigned interest” in an effort to identify the caller. (Id. ¶¶ 33-38). He subsequently learned that the caller was an FSB representative. FSB, which is owned by NBH, provides traditional banking services and sells residential mortgages. Defendants hired third-party companies, including FDE, to place these telemarketing calls to consumers. Upon a successful pitch with a potential customer, FDE would transfer the live call to one of Defendants’ representatives to complete the sale. (Id.).

Needle Dee???

So lead generator sells data in the name of Needle Dee to a call center marketing group that goes ahead and calls the number and literally asks for “Needle Dee.”

The dude answers and is like “yep, this is Needle Dee” and gets transferred to a rep, and now FSB is facing MASSIVE exposure.

How massive?

Well apparently the data FDE produced (for some reason) demonstrates 2,294,457 numbers were called that are in the DNC class.

2.3MM folks.

That means exposure in this suit is up to $3.3BB ($1,500.00 x 2.3MM)

Now interestingly, only 27,088 of calls to those numbers actually resulted in a transfer to FSB. So the marketer had to call 85 PEOPLE to get ONE that would agree to be transferred to FSB.

Not good stats.

Regardless FSB is on the hook for ALL calls made by FDE.

That MIGHT make sense if FDE was calling exclusively for FSB (not sure) but I will bet FSB had no idea the number of calls being made “on its behalf” in this suit.

In opposing certification it looks like FSB focused on a bunch of the wrong arguments– substantive things like standing or vicarious liability that will be COMMON across the class– and not critical items like EBR, residential line usage or consent that will vary across the class.

To be sure consent was raised by the defense but apparently they failed to demonstrate different sources for the numbers called. The court found:” FDE obtained all the proposed class members’ numbers from the same commercial source”

I find that stunningly difficult to believe.

All of these numbers came from the same URL? No chance.

I suspect Defendant’s lawyers just didn’t understand the lead generation game sufficient to explain the situation to the court.

In my view this case should never have been certified– but it was. And it just goes to show:

1. Buying leads is dangerous. If you are going to do it you MUST understand who you are working with and make sure dumb stuff like calling “Needle Dee” isn’t happening (maybe only buy R.E.A.C.H. certified leads and stay safe!);
2. Hiring counsel that doesn’t do TCPA class litigation like every minute of every day is also extremely dangerous;
3. The TCPA remains the biggest risk to most institutions. Do you think FSB is facing any other $3.3BB risks right now? Nope. But they probably didn’t take this case too seriously. Big mistake.