Business Loan Firm Illegally Texted Numbers on DNC Registry, Alleges Class Action
RFR Capital illegally sent telemarketing text messages to numbers on the national do not call registry to promote its business loan services and did so without the recipients’ consent, alleged a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 2:24-cv-02636)…
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in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. RFR “directed its illegal calling conduct into Pennsylvania by sending its text message spam to Pennsylvania area codes,” said Leon Weingrad’s complaint. The Pennsylvania resident’s cellphone number was listed on the national DNC registry for more than a year before he began receiving RFR’s text messages, it said. The number is a residential phone line because it’s assigned to a cellphone exchange service for consumers and isn’t assigned to a telephone exchange service for businesses, it said. The plaintiff doesn’t use the number for business reasons and the number isn’t registered in the name of or associated with a business, it said. Weingrad “never consented or requested in any way” to receive the text messages from RFR, nor did he ever do business with the company, it said. He nevertheless received at least nine automated text messages from the defendant’s number between Jan. 16 and May 28 as part of a telemarketing campaign, it said. The messages “continued relentlessly with substantially similar content,” said the complaint. The messages all included a link to apply at RFR’s website, and some also included a link to schedule a meeting with a company employee, it said. Weingrad and all members of the class have been harmed by RFR’s acts “because their privacy has been violated and they were annoyed and harassed,” it said. The calls also occupied their phone lines, storage space and bandwidth, “rendering them unavailable for legitimate communication,” it said.