Many consumers have had to deal with persistent or even tedious promotional text messages from fast-food chains at some point. But Pizza Hut is being accused of taking things so far with its marketing texts that its actions equaled harassment of customers.
The pizza chain is facing a new lawsuit from a consumer alleging that the company continued to send him promotional texts for months after he opted out of receiving them, The Takeout reported. The class action lawsuit claims that these continued messages without his consent violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which restricts telemarketing calls and messages to consumers.
The plaintiff, Danuel Cortez, says in the lawsuit that he opted out of Pizza Hut’s texts in April 2022 but continued to receive messages for two subsequent months. The lawsuit states that these continued texts “resulted in the invasion of privacy, harassment, aggravation, and disruption of the daily life of thousands of individuals.”
Cortez is seeking a trial and statutory damages from the company. And if you had a similar experience with Pizza Hut, this case could be relevant to you too. The lawsuit is meant to apply to any consumers who continued to receive promotional texts from the chain in the last four years after opting out of the messages.
Pizza Hut did not immediately respond to our queries for comment on the lawsuit.
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This is only the latest in a string of lawsuits against major restaurant chains this year. Chipotle sued Sweetgreen in April after the salad chain added a “Chipotle-Chicken Burrito Bowl” to the menu. The lawsuit accused Sweetgreen of using its trademarked name and branding to sell a product very similar to Chipotle’s own chicken burrito bowls. Luckily, the case was quickly resolved after Sweetgreen agreed to rename the menu item as the “Chicken + Chipotle Pepper Bowl.”
Buffalo Wild Wings was also sued back in March–but for a very different reason. The lawsuit’s plaintiff was a customer who purchased boneless wings believing he would receive actual deboned chicken wings instead of the deep-fried chicken breast chunks the chain actually serves.
The customer accused Buffalo Wild Wings of using “false and deceptive marketing and advertising” and said he may not have purchased the wings at all if he knew what they truly were. Buffalo Wild Wings shared a cheeky response to the lawsuit on Twitter in March.
“It’s true. Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo,” the chain tweeted.
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Zoe Strozewski
Zoe Strozewski is a News Writer for Eat This, Not That! A Chicago native who now lives in New Jersey, she graduated from Kean University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Read more about Zoe
