The evidence file: what to keep, starting today

By MercPrivacy · Published 2026-08-01 · Updated 2026-08-02

Most people harassed for months have nothing usable by the time they want to act. Ten minutes of habit changes that completely.

## The problem with waiting

By the time someone is angry enough to act on unwanted calls, they have usually deleted the texts, cleared the call log, let the voicemails purge, and forgotten exactly when they asked the company to stop.

None of that can be reconstructed later. Carriers keep call detail for a limited window. Screenshots cannot be back-dated. And the single most valuable fact in this area — that you asked them to stop and they continued — is the one people are least likely to have recorded.

Whether or not you ever engage anyone to help, start the file now. It costs almost nothing.

## The minimum set

**For every call:** - Date and time, and the number it came from - Whether you heard a **recording or artificial voice**, or a live person - What was being sold, and any company name given - Whether you were **transferred** — and to whom, with any callback number or address

**For every text:** - A screenshot showing the sending number and the timestamp in the same frame - The thread exported, if your phone supports it - The link, captured but not clicked

**For every email:** - The **raw headers** — via *Show original* or *View source*, never a forward - The body as displayed and as source

**For every opt-out:** - The date, the method, and the exact words you used - Every message that arrived afterwards

**Once, at the start:** - Your Do Not Call registration date - Whether the number is wireless or landline, and whose name it is in - Any prior dealings with the company being advertised — including anything you signed, since an arbitration clause in an unrelated agreement can quietly govern the claim

## Two things people get wrong

**Do not forward emails.** Forwarding replaces the routing headers that prove origin. Save the original source instead.

**Do not record calls without checking your state first.** Recording rules are state law and they are criminal statutes. Some states need only your consent; others require everyone on the line to agree, and interstate calls raise which rule applies.

## Why the pattern matters more than any single call

One unwanted call is rarely worth pursuing. Fourteen of them, with a documented opt-out at call four and ten more afterwards, is a different matter entirely — because the pattern proves knowledge, and knowledge is what turns a routine violation into a serious one.

The file is what turns the pattern into something anyone can act on. Start it today.