FAQs
Including the ones that are not in our commercial interest. If something here rules you out as a client, we would rather you knew now.
Three things, run together. We find and remove your personal information from data-broker and people-search sites. We document every unwanted call, text and email you receive into a proper evidence file. And when your file names the company that sent them, we prepare a demand for you to sign and send in your own name, and manage the mailing and tracking.
No. MercPrivacy is not a law firm and we do not practise law or give legal advice. We do the removal, documentation and administrative work in house, and we prepare the documents you sign and send in your own name. We never negotiate for you: every decision about your demand is yours. If you want legal advice or representation, such as a court filing, you engage a licensed attorney of your choosing, who represents you. We encourage you to have your own attorney review anything before you sign or send it.
Honestly: not overnight. Data brokers have response windows and many use all of them, so the first meaningful drop usually shows up after the first full removal cycle rather than in the first week. Anyone promising immediate silence is overselling. What you will see quickly is a clear picture of who is listing you and what is actually reaching you.
No. Plenty of clients come to us purely to get their information out of the broker market before it turns into anything. Removal and monitoring stand on their own.
No, and be sceptical of anyone who says they can. Genuinely public records — property deeds, court filings, professional licences, published news — remain public. What we suppress is the commercial resale of your information bundled into a profile and sold as a lead. That is the part actually driving the calls.
Because brokers re-acquire data continuously. A profile removed in August can reappear in November from a different upstream supplier, and the broker has no obligation to remember your earlier objection to a record it just re-obtained. A one-time cleanup produces a good screenshot and a temporary dip. Ongoing re-scanning and re-filing is what actually holds the line.
Enough to find you accurately — typically your name and any former names, current and prior addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. We only use it to search for and file removals on your listings.
Usually not. The number is a dead end, but the company that paid for the campaign generally is not. The fastest route is a warm transfer: when a live agent passes you to a real business, that business is identifiable — and under federal law it can be responsible for calls it never personally dialled where it directed, benefited from, or ratified them.
Federal law provides $500 per violation, which a court may increase to $1,500 where the violation was willful or knowing, and state statutes can add to that. Those are the statutory figures, not a prediction about your matter — what any claim actually yields depends on how many violations are provable, whether the caller can produce a valid consent record, and whether there is a solvent, identifiable company behind it.
No, and this is the most useful fact in the whole area. The caller carries the burden of proving they had your consent. A demand can ask them to produce that record — and in practice it is frequently missing, stale, or inherited from a lead vendor and unusable.
Because the federal email statute, CAN-SPAM, deliberately gives individual recipients no private right of action. Enforcement belongs to regulators and internet providers. Email claims therefore run on state statutes, which survive federal preemption where they target falsity or deception — a forged header, a false sender, a deliberately misleading subject line. An annoying but truthful email with a working unsubscribe usually is not a claim.
Yes, more than most people expect. The federal restrictions on automated and prerecorded calls protect the number, not the person — so a business owner’s mobile is covered the same as anyone else’s. Several state statutes go further and reach business lines the federal rules leave alone. If your company line is buried under merchant-advance or listing-service pitches, that is squarely in scope.
Removal, your evidence file and processing are a flat monthly membership after a one-time onboarding fee, and a demand package is a flat fee per company. Every fee is set out in writing before any work starts, and no fee is ever a share of a settlement.
No. We prepare your demand, mail it and track every response, and we send you everything the company says. Any discussion of money is between you, or an attorney you engage, and the company. If the company or its lawyer contacts us, we ask them to send their response to you in writing.
We will tell you. If the numbers are spoofed and dead and nothing in your file names a company, we will say so plainly and point you to the free routes — the Do Not Call registry, carrier blocking tools, and regulator complaints. Removal and documentation stand on their own, and a demand package is offered only once your file names the company that sent the calls or texts.
Not through us: MercPrivacy never files anything in court. What happens after a company answers your demand is your decision. You can respond to it yourself, file in small claims court yourself, or engage an attorney of your choosing, who represents you. If a step needs an attorney, we will tell you, and at your direction we share your file with them.