Saks Department Stores Hit with Suit Over Allegedly Unsolicited Text Messages

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Saks department stores are facing a suit filed in New York’s Southern District over telemarketing texts they allegedly sent without obtaining prior consent.

According to the complaint, the operators of Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by sending marketing texts—specifically to advertise their text messaging alerts service—to consumers who did not give prior permission to receive such messages. The suit alleges Saks used an auto-dialer, which is prohibited for use in non-emergency situations under the TCPA, to send the texts.

The lead plaintiff in the suit claims that she signed up for an account on Saks.com and began to receive texts shortly thereafter despite the fact that Saks had not asked for her permission to be sent such messages. Saks allegedly included a link to their privacy policy in the text at issue directing the plaintiff toward information on opting in to the retailer’s texts by either filling out an online form or responding directly to the message, which the case says is indicative of the use of an auto-dialer. According to the suit, however, the privacy policy that Saks’ text messages linked to was not the same one the plaintiff saw when signing up for her online account.

The suit seeks to represent a class of everyone in the United States who from August of 2015 until the class is certified received auto-dialed telemarketing texts from Saks without having provided prior express written consent. It requests treble damages on the $500 per text allowed by the TCPA.