Class Action Seeks to Halt McAfee’s ‘Misleading’ Text Marketing Campaign
McAfee’s “widespread practice” of sending “misleading and unsolicited” marketing text messages to consumers violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act (DCSA), alleged plaintiff Victoria Roehrman’s class action Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-02146) in U.S. District Court for…
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Southern Indiana in Indianapolis. McAfee also unlawfully sends texts to numbers listed on the national do not call registry, said her complaint. McAfee’s conduct runs counter to the DCSA because the texts falsely led the Brownsburg, Indiana, resident to believe that her phone was infected with a virus or usage may be compromised “when that was untrue,” it said. That attempt to “coerce” her and “instill fear” was unfair, deceptive and “unconscionable,” it said. Roehrman listed her cellphone number on the national DNC registry in July 2004 “to obtain privacy and solitude from invasive and harassing telemarketing calls and text messages,” said her complaint. But that didn’t stop McAfee from sending her a “litany” of telemarketing text messages to promote and sell its antivirus software, it said. Roehrman estimates that McAfee sent her nearly two dozen text messages, though she never sought information about McAfee’s products, nor did she engage “in any communications or otherwise do business with McAfee,” it said. Some texts falsely claimed Roehrman had received a refund or won a prize before redirecting her to the McAfee ordering page on the McAfee website, it said.