Grassdoor.com Sued Over Alleged Text Message Ads

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The operator of cannabis retailer Grassdoor.com faces a proposed class action over its alleged practice of sending telemarketing text messages to consumers who never consented to receive them.

The 14-page lawsuit alleges defendant GE United Technologies, LLC has run afoul of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a federal law that prohibits companies from using automated technology to send promotional texts without first securing a recipient’s express consent to be contacted in that manner.

“The TCPA was designed to prevent calls and messages like the ones described within this complaint, and to protect the privacy of citizens like Plaintiff,” the complaint states.

The plaintiff is a California resident who claims to have received promotional text messages from the defendant despite never having been a customer of or providing consent to the cannabis retail website to receive telemarketing messages. According to the suit, the plaintiff never provided his cell phone number to Grassdoor.com “for any reason whatsoever.”

Based on the content of the text messages, the plaintiff suspects they were sent using an automated “SMS Blasting Platform” that can automatically send the texts to “large groups of consumers all at once” without human intervention, the complaint relays.

The case also claims that the plaintiff’s cell phone number had been listed on the National Do Not Call Registry for “well over thirty (30) days” before he received the first text advertising the defendant’s goods and services. Per the suit, Grassdoor failed to implement reasonable practices and policies to prevent the unlawful solicitation of consumers whose numbers are listed on the National DNC Registry.

The plaintiff looks to represent anyone in the U.S. who, within the last four years and through the date of class certification, received from the defendant an unsolicited, non-emergency text message that was sent using an automatic telephone dialing system or artificial or prerecorded voice and did not provide their prior express consent to receive the message.

The lawsuit also proposes to cover a class consisting of anyone in the U.S. whose number was registered on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least 30 days and received from the defendant more than one text message within a 12-month period that promoted the company’s products or services, and who had not provided their prior express consent or had a prior business relationship with the defendant, within the past four years and through the date of class certification.

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