TCPA compliance (Blacklist Alliance)

VICIfast can check every number you dial against the Blacklist Alliance litigator database before the call connects — known TCPA litigators and professional plaintiffs get refused instead of rung. You bring your own Blacklist Alliance (BLA) API key: the billing and the per-lookup audit trail live in your BLA account, not ours. Setup takes about three minutes.

Before you start

• A plan that includes TCPA litigator lookup — the Compliance defaults panel tells you if yours doesn’t, with an Upgrade prompt.
• A Blacklist Alliance API key — create one at blacklistalliance.com, in your BLA dashboard under API Access.
• The owner login for your VICIfast account — only the owner can change compliance settings.

Step 1 — Open the compliance defaults

1. Click Servers in the left sidebar, then click your server.
2. Click the Trunks tab.
3. In the pill row under the tab, click Compliance defaults.

You are looking at the TCPA compliance default panel — the server-wide setting every trunk uses unless you override it. If the panel says "TCPA litigator lookup isn’t on this plan" instead of showing the form, upgrade first; the rest of this guide then applies.

Step 2 — Connect your BLA key

1. Paste your key into Blacklist Alliance API key. We encrypt it at rest and never show it back — on later edits, leave the field blank to keep the saved key.
2. BA customer ID (optional) — only if your BLA account requires one.
3. On lookup failure — pick Allow call (fail-open · higher availability) or Block call (fail-closed · stricter compliance). This decides what happens when Blacklist Alliance itself times out or errors; numbers actually on the blacklist are always refused.
4. Leave the Enabled switch on and click Test + save. We test the key against Blacklist Alliance before saving — the panel then shows Connected with the Last test result.

That’s it: every trunk in Inherit mode now scrubs each outbound number before VICIdial dials it.

Step 3 — Override per trunk (optional)

Different clients can live under different compliance contracts, so each trunk can diverge from the server default:

1. In the Trunks tab, click a trunk’s row to open its drawer.
2. Open the Compliance (TCPA) section.
3. Pick Inherit server default (the default for new trunks), Custom — this trunk’s own BLA key and failure mode — or Disabled, which skips the check entirely on this trunk (meant for trunks outside US TCPA scope, like Canada or the EU).

The trunk list polices this for you: a red TCPA off badge on disabled trunks, an amber TCPA: add key badge when a Custom trunk has no key saved, and a red banner across the top whenever live outbound trunks are dialing without scrubbing.

What happens on each call

Before VICIdial places the call, a hook on your server checks the number against Blacklist Alliance with a 2.5-second budget, so dialing never stalls on a slow day at BLA. A listed litigator is refused before the call leaves your server; if BLA can’t be reached in time, your failure mode decides. Results are cached per number for 6 hours, so redials and high-volume campaigns don’t re-hit the API — and rotating your key automatically clears the cache.

Good to know

• The audit trail lawyers ask for — which numbers were looked up, what came back, and when — lives in your Blacklist Alliance account. Your VICIfast dashboard shows configuration posture (Connected, per-trunk modes), not a per-call log.
• Failover routes use the first (priority-1) trunk’s compliance setting.
• Fail-open vs fail-closed is a real trade-off: fail-open keeps dialing through a BLA outage but can let an unchecked number through; fail-closed refuses any call it couldn’t check.
• To turn scrubbing off entirely, click Disconnect on the Compliance defaults panel — numbers are no longer checked pre-dial.
• Scrubbing litigators reduces risk; it isn’t compliance by itself. Consent, calling windows, and DNC lists are still on you.