Pizza chain sued over what customers say were illegal text ads

 @LocalLady Actually, it would be Papa John's who broke the law.  They were the ones who gathered and (most likely) sold the information to an outside investor, without first seeking approval from the customer. 

You need to read up on Steve Dallas's law tips "Who Should I Sue...."

 

http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1986/06/22/

 @LocalLady Sorry, there is no room for fair and reasonable here! Franchisees, a good chance that many of them are struggling to keep their heads above water; mega corporation, seven figures is probably in their petty cash box tucked in the receptionist's desk. 

 

What do you think you're trying to do, bring fairness and logic into our legal system? What's the matter with you, anyway? :^D  

 @MVDad You must be watching John Stewart.

 @Sydthepiper We don't have TV reception now, had to cut out the cable, so I'm not sure which Manning brother is the spokesman.

But it's pretty safe to say, I could go for quite awhile on a single game check for either. (Heck, I'm not greedy here; I'd even settle for a game check from one of the two lesser known Mannings that play defense!)

 @Blindman "Were customers stupid enough to give them their phone numbers?" I take it you've never called for pizza delivery from a chain store? Giving your phone number is a required part of the pizza-ordering process and it has been at least since I first started calling in to order pizzas fifteen years ago (if not longer), so it wasn't the customer's fault that Papa John's franchisees chose to break the law and hire an outside service to blast their customers. This is especially true since providing your phone number for ordering purposes does not authorize the company you order from to send you advertisements unless they explicitly inform you of that fact before collecting your phone number. That's why the franchisees were warned to stop doing what they were doing.

 

Even if you order online, most pizza chains require that you fill in a form with your address and number, and they use caller ID for phone orders to make sure the address and phone number you give them matches up with the ones displaying. They sometimes also hang up and call you back to confirm it's your number before the first time you order with them. This supposedly prevents your neighbor Joe Schmo from calling up Pizza Hut from his apartment and telling them he is you and that he wants ten anchovy lover pizzas sent to your address. I don't know the real stats for how often pizza places get pranked like that so I don't know if it the phone number thing helps much or not, but it seems reasonable.

 

To me this whole issue sounds like a case of a few franchisees taking matters into their own hands by hiring a company to send text ads to the cell phone numbers of people who had ordered there, without checking into the legality of doing so without authorization or permission from the owner of each phone, and that once it was brought to the parent company's attention, they put a stop to it.

@Blindman Any place that takes phone orders is going to ask for your phone number at a minimum. It is necessary to help stop getting scammed with false orders.

 @Blindman Probably happened when they ordered pizza.  When we call our local pizza place, they have caller ID and ask, "is this still the correct number and address at......."