SAN FRANCISCO, CA- Lyft Uber’s worst rival, Lyft, has been cited by the Federal Communications Commission for violating Telephone Consumer Protection Act, by spamming the consumers with auto-dialed answering machine messages, while the company does not let those who received the spamming to unsubscribe from the messages.
FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, Travis LeBlanc, said in an interview with VentureBeat:
“Consumers have the right to choose whether they want marketing calls and texts to their cell phones. Today we again make clear that such calls and texts are unlawful without express written consumer consent.”
There were even some investigations conducted by the FCC according to which, Lyft may mention that it allows users to opt out of texts and calls but that is not entirely true.
What really happens is that those who opt out of marketing texts and calls are also excluded from texts that Lyft sends to its customers, including the security confirmation texts that users need to receive in order to log into their Lyft account and order a ride.
A Lyft’s spokesman defended the company by supporting that it has just found out about the particular situation. More specifically he said:
“This is the first we are seeing of the order and are in the process of reviewing it. We look forward to working with the FCC to resolve this issue.”
Things could escalate and get ugly fast for Lyft, if the company keeps bending the rules to its will. Plus, judging by the warning, we conclude that the government keeps an eye on the startup as well.
For the record, Uber and Lyft have come into conflicts many times before in the recent past and they have also had some issues with the law here and there around the States.
Though, that does not seem to be stopping the new startups of this industry to evolve surprisingly fast.
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