Pizza chain Papa John’s faces a $250 million lawsuit for allegedly sending customers a large quantity of unsolicited text messages, it was reported Tuesday.
“After I ordered from Papa John’s, my telephone started beeping with text messages advertising pizza specials,” Erin Chutich, a plaintiff, said in a statement obtained by CNN. “Papa John’s never asked permission to send me text message advertisements.”
Plaintiffs in the suit claim the Louisville, Kentucky-based pizza chain sent a total of 500,000 unwanted text messages nearly three years ago, the network reported. Some customers alleged Papa John’s sent 15 to 16 texts in a row, sometimes late at night.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, reports Seattle-based KOMO News.
“The act of ordering a pizza does not give any sort of consent, not an explicit or implicit consent that the person is interested in having unsolicited advertising sent to them,” privacy expert Linda Criddle told the television station.
A lawyer for Papa John’s told KOMO that the lawsuit has “no merit” and the chain will fight it “aggressively.”
The firm used marketing company OnTime4U to send the text messages on its behalf, reported The Associated Press. Specifically, the plaintiffs could potentially receive $500 for each unsolicited text message that was sent by the company, according to the news agency.
Papa John’s stock fell Tuesday by 1.52 percent to $48.69 per share.
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