Undisclosed
Settlement
TCPA class action against the Los Angeles Times. Final approval granted 2014.
A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against Wise Media, LLC, an alleged spammer that tricks cell phone customers out of $10 a month for “flirting tips” unless they immediately reject a “tip” they never asked for, consented to, or even received.
According to the class action lawsuit, lead Plaintiff Andrew Humble he received a text message from an unknown sender in January 2012 stating: “LoveGenieTips Flirting Tips; 3msg/week for $9.99/m T&Cs: lovegenietips.com Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel. PIN 5WY6.” Because he did not recognize the number, Humble ignored the text. Two minutes later, Humble says he received another text that read: “Lovegenietips: You joined $9.99/m for 3msg/wk bill to cell.” Again, Humble says, he did not respond to the text because he didn’t recognize the number.
“Humble had no intention of enrolling in the subscription plan,” the Wise Media class action lawsuit states. “In support of this lack of any intention to enroll in the subscription plan, Humble relied on the fact that he did not have a relationship with defendant, had not solicited any goods or services from defendant, and had not responded to any of defendant’s texts.”
In February, he received a 3rd text message from Wise Media stating “LoveGenieTips: Subsc renewed 1mo. 3msg/wk for $9.99/mo billed to cell,” and became suspicious and decided to check his bank account and cell phone bill for unauthorized charges. His suspicions were confirmed when he discovered a monthly subscription charge from Wise Media in the amount of $9.99 charged to his account. “Humble never authorized this charge for LoveGenieTips Alerts, which was charged to his cell phone bill the same day and presumably minutes after he received the first SMS text message,” the class action lawsuit states.
Additionally, “Wise Media’s conduct is particularly egregious because not only did the defendant involuntarily enroll consumers in a fee-based service, the defendant also failed to provide the services it claimed that it was charging consumers for – i.e. the consumers never received the weekly flirting tips.”
“Wise Media obtained cell phone numbers even though consumers had never visited the website, had never expressed interest in defendant or the subscription plan, and had no relationship with the defendant,” the text message spam class action lawsuit states.
“Without any action or solicitation by the consumers, defendant sent SMS texts to the mobile phone numbers that it had acquired… using equipment that had the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random sequential number generator.”
If these allegations are true, Wise Media would be considered to be in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), as well as fraudulent and unfair business practices, Humble says. He is seeking actual monetary loss or $500 each for each violation of the TCPA, plus restitution, damages and treble damages for a proposed class of all individuals who received unsolicited SMS text messages from or on behalf of Wise Media, and who were charged for a Subscription Plan on their cell phone bills.
If you are receiving unsolicited spam text messages on your cell phone in violation of the TCPA, you may be entitled to compensation. Please call California Consumer Protection Attorney, Todd M. Friedman at 877-449-8898 for a free consultation.
