Opt-out words that count (and how to prove you said them)

By MercPrivacy · Published 2026-07-11 · Updated 2026-08-05

Consent can be revoked by any reasonable means, and callers must honor it within ten business days. The exact words to use, and the thirty-second habit that proves you said them.

Most stop requests are muttered mid-eye-roll, halfway over the agent's script, and followed by a hang-up. The request is real. Six months later, the proof of it does not exist: the person who made it cannot say when it happened, which company it was, or what exactly was said.

This matters because the stop request is the most valuable sentence in this entire field. Calls before it may be violations. Calls after it are violations with a fact pattern attached — a company that was told, in words, and kept dialing. The difference between those two files is enormous, and it turns entirely on whether the sentence can be proved.

The law is generous about the words. The proof is on you.

## Any reasonable means

You do not need magic words, a notarized letter, or the caller's preferred procedure. Under current federal rules, consent can be revoked by *any reasonable means* — saying stop on a call, replying STOP to a text, sending an email. The route does not need to be the caller's favorite channel; it needs to be reasonable. The same standard covers texting, because the law treats a text as a call — your one-word STOP is a revocation, not a suggestion.

The clock after that is short: callers must honor a revocation within a reasonable time, capped at ten business days. Contact that continues past that window is exactly what your log exists to catch.

Retire one piece of folk advice while we are here: the warning that replying STOP only "confirms your number." Replying STOP to a legitimate sender stops the messages and stamps a timestamp on your request. A scammer ignores it either way — you have lost nothing and created a record. The texting side of this is covered in [unwanted texts and why stop matters](https://mercprivacy.com/knowledge/unwanted-texts-and-why-stop-matters).

## The list they must keep even if you never registered

The Do Not Call registry gets the attention, but a second duty is broader and far less known: companies must maintain their own internal do-not-call list and honor a stop request — and that duty applies even where the national registry does not. Your demand creates the entry. Whether or not your number is on [the registry](https://mercprivacy.com/knowledge/do-not-call-registry-explained), "put this number on your do-not-call list" imposes an obligation on that specific caller, about you specifically, that its compliance function is supposed to track.

That is why the scripts below use the phrase "do-not-call list." You are not making a polite request. You are triggering a duty. And make the demand per company, not per line: when the same brand pitches you from three different numbers, your demand covers the brand's calling, not one slot in its dialer.

## Scripts that leave no wiggle room

On a live call, collect one fact, then say one sentence:

1. **First, the name** — "What company are you calling from?" If a live person is on the line, get the seller's name, not just the call center's. Write it down while they answer. 2. **Then, the sentence** — "Put this number on your internal do-not-call list. Do not call this number again for any reason." 3. **Do not negotiate** — no "maybe next quarter," no "send me something instead." A clean refusal reads cleanly in a log. A maybe reads like consent's cousin.

In writing, shorter is better:

- **By text** — reply STOP. One word, nothing else. Unambiguous, and it screenshots beautifully. - **By email** — subject "Do not contact me again"; body "Remove this number from your lists and do not contact me again." Send it to any address the sender has used or published.

If the call is a recording with nobody on it, do not argue with the robot. Log the call, and use a written channel if the sender is identifiable — a revocation needs a company to receive it, and the log entry preserves the attempt either way.

> Said clearly and logged, a stop request ends the calls or starts the case. Unlogged, it does neither.

## Three ways people erase their own proof

- **Venting without recording** — a satisfying speech with no note of the date, the number, or the company is a memory, not evidence. - **Calling the number back** — the displayed number is often spoofed. The callback reaches nobody, creates no record, and spends your patience on a dial tone. - **Tidying the thread** — deleting the exchange later, screenshots half-taken, the one message that mattered gone. Preserve first. Tidy never.

## Proving you said it

You do not need to record the call. You need a note made at the time — *contemporaneous*, in the language of people who argue about evidence — and contemporaneous notes carry weight precisely because they were written before there was anything to argue about. The habit:

- **The moment you hang up** — one line in a running note: date, time, the number that called, the company name, the words you used, the agent's response. Thirty seconds. - **For texts** — screenshot the thread showing their message, your STOP, and both timestamps. Then leave the thread alone. Deleting it later shreds your own exhibit. - **For email** — your sent folder is its own timestamp. Keep the message. - **Afterward** — log every subsequent contact the same way. The entries after the stop are the ones that matter most; review them against the ten-business-day window.

The full inventory of what to keep — voicemails, screenshots, the phone bill — is in [the evidence file](https://mercprivacy.com/knowledge/the-evidence-file-what-to-keep). The stop-request note is the crown jewel of that file. Write it like it will be read aloud one day, because the good ones are.

## If the calls kept coming anyway

A documented stop request followed by continued contact is the situation we most want to see — not because it is pleasant, but because it is provable. [Stephanie](https://mercprivacy.com/stephanie) can evaluate the log instantly and free, or call (830) 587-5011. Bring the note with the date on it. That note is where a case starts.