In Williams v. Bank of America, Nat. Ass’n, 2015 WL 3843251, at *2-4 (D.S.C.,2015), Judge Harwell denied a TCPA Defendant’s motion to dismiss.
The Court finds Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts to state a claim under the TCPA. Plaintiff claims Defendant began calling her cellular telephone after January 2013, and upon answering Defendant’s calls, Plaintiff heard an automated message telling her to contact Bank of America about a loan. Complaint at ¶¶ 5–6. She asserts a live representative was never available on Defendant’s phone calls and maintains she never consented to Defendant calling her cell phone. Id. at ¶¶ 5, 8. Plaintiff asserts she incurs a charge for incoming telephone calls made to her cell phone. Id. at ¶¶ 7. Thus, Plaintiff has alleged Defendant used an automated telephone dialing system to call her on her cell phone without her consent and at her expense. Moreover, the Court rejects Defendant’s argument that Plaintiff’s claims under the TCPA must be dismissed because her complaint did not specify the telephone number that Defendant allegedly called. See Motion to Dismiss at 3–4, 6. In support of this argument, Defendant relies on a decision wherein a Michigan district court granted a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss because the plaintiff failed to plead the cell phone number that the defendant allegedly called. Id. at 4–5 (citing Strand v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc., No. 1:13–CV–1235, 2014 WL 1515494, at *3–4 (W.D.Mich. Apr. 17, 2014) (requiring the plaintiff to plead her cellular telephone number in a TCPA claim)). Although the Fourth Circuit has not addressed the question of whether a plaintiff must provide her telephone number in her complaint, other district courts considering the question have consistently rejected the position taken by Defendant and Strand. See, e.g., Margulis v. Generation Life Ins. Co., –––F.Supp.3d ––––, ––––, 2015 WL 1260483, at *2 (E.D.Mo. Mar. 19, 2015) (“Strand … appear[s] to take the minority view. The majority of district courts “do not require such detail at the pleading stage in order to provide adequate notice to a TCPA defendant.”); Ott v. Mortgage Investors Corp. of Ohio, ––– F.Supp.3d ––––, ––––, 2014 WL 6851964, at *8 (D.Or. Dec. 3, 2014) (recognizing “Strand is contrary to most other district courts” and denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ TCPA claim based on the plaintiff’s failure to plead the cellular telephone number that the defendants allegedly called); Crawford v. Target Corp., No. 3:14–CV–0090–B, 2014 WL 5847490, at *2–4 (N.D.Tex. Nov. 10, 2014) (rejecting Strand and finding “a plaintiff’s specific telephone number is not essential to providing a defendant notice of the conduct charged”); Jackson v. HSBC Mortgage Servs., Inc., No. 2:14–CV–1240–RDP, 2014 WL 5100089, at *4 (N.D.Ala. Oct. 10, 2014) (finding the “failure to specify in a complaint the telephone number called under the TCPA claim” was not grounds for dismissal of a TCPA claim); Manfred v. Bennett Law, PLLC, No. 12–CV–61548, 2012 WL 6102071, at *2 n. 2 (S.D.Fla. Dec. 7, 2012) (finding the “[p]laintiff need not allege his specific cellular telephone number” in stating a cause of action under the TCPA). Agreeing with these decisions, the Court finds that at the pleading stage, the TCPA does not require Plaintiff to provide the cell phone number that Defendant allegedly called. Plaintiff’s allegation that Defendant called her cellular telephone provides adequate notice to Defendant of its conduct alleged to have violated the TCPA. Complaint at ¶¶ 5–6. Defendant may obtain information regarding the telephone number it allegedly called through discovery; the phone number is not necessary to put Defendant on notice of its alleged conduct. Accordingly, accepting the facts alleged in the complaint as true, the complaint states facts sufficient to allege a violation of the TCPA that is plausible on its face. The Court therefore denies Defendant’s motion to dismiss regarding Plaintiff’s claims under the TCPA.