Real Estate Firm Sent Plaintiff At Least 20 Text Messages in Spanish: Class Action
Real estate company Colony Ridge Development routinely sends ad or marketing text messages to residential phone numbers listed with the national do not call registry without “the prior express invitation or permission required” by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged…
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a class action Wednesday (docket 4:24-cv-02418) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston. Plaintiff Eric Geaslin listed his cellphone number with the national DNC registry in December 2019, yet he received multiple text messages from Colony beginning in late 2022 and continuing through to the present, said the complaint. The Spanish-language text messages advertised properties for sale, but the Plantersville, Texas, resident didn’t recognize the sender, nor does he speak or read Spanish, it said. In light of allegations made by government regulators such as the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Colony engages in a predatory business model through which it seeks to solicit Hispanic consumers to purchase land or property under unfavorable financial conditions, said the complaint. Geaslin estimates he received at least 20 ad or telemarketing text messages from Colony on his cellphone between 2022 and the present, it said. Geaslin suffered actual harm as a result of the text messages “in that he suffered an invasion of privacy, an intrusion into his life, and a private nuisance,” it said.