Hodge v. Travel + Leisure: Identical 26-Second Voicemails Are a Prerecorded Voice Giveaway

Timeshare Payments and Lots of Calls

The plaintiff, a California resident, bought timeshares from the company in 2018 and 2019. When she fell behind on payments, she says the company called her multiple times a day, sometimes more than three times a day, for months. She asked them to stop. The calls kept coming, including one at 6:20 a.m. her time.

The court had dismissed her first complaint because she hadn't explained why she thought the messages were prerecorded. Round two had a lot more detail.

Why the Court Believed These Were Prerecorded

Every voicemail claimed to be from the same named representative of the company's vacation resorts brand. Each asked her to call the same toll-free number, each lasted about 26 seconds, and none mentioned anything specific to her. When she picked up, the content was identical too.

The judge's take was common sense: real people on the phone aren't that uniform. At the pleading stage, those details made it plausible that the messages used an artificial or prerecorded voice.

Consent Is the Company's Problem

The company argued she consented to calls. But under Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Group, LLC, 847 F.3d 1037 (9th Cir. 2017), consent is an affirmative defense the company has to prove, not something the plaintiff has to disprove in her complaint. A court can dismiss on consent only if the complaint itself establishes it, and this one didn't.

Standing Rides With the Claims

The company also challenged standing. Ninth Circuit precedent says a TCPA violation is itself the concrete injury, so standing was tied up with the merits. Same for the Florida claim, since harassing calls closely resemble traditional privacy and nuisance harms.

The Florida Claim Survives Too

The plaintiff swapped out a California claim for one under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act. The company had three objections:

• "You didn't have permission to add a new claim." The earlier order granted leave to amend without limits, the case was young, and the new claim rested on the same facts.
• "We're not a debt collector." Unlike the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Florida law covers any "person" collecting debts, as Florida courts and the Eleventh Circuit have recognized.
• "The calls weren't harassing." Frequency and purpose matter most. Multiple calls a day for months, after she asked them to stop, looks a lot closer to the 100-calls-in-five-months end of the spectrum than seven calls over six months. Whether calls are harassing is usually a question for the factfinder anyway.

Takeaways

For companies collecting on accounts: a prerecorded voicemail campaign leaves a pattern that's easy to describe in a complaint. Make sure you have consent that actually covers prerecorded messages, honor stop requests, and watch calling hours and frequency.

For consumers: details matter. The first complaint here failed because it was vague. The second worked because it described the name, the length, the callback number, and the sameness of every message.

Read the Northern District of California order in Hodge v. Travel + Leisure.