In December 2005 Jeffrey Weinstein, a business analyst from Logan Square in the US, received a text message from the Timberland shoe company offering a 20 percent discount for shopping at their website. Weinstein wasn’t happy at receiving what he deemed to be an unsolicited text message so he has sued Timberland and GSI Commerce the an e-commerce company that worked with Timberland on the marketing campaign for $7 million.
After receiving the message Weinstein thought: “There has to be a law against something like this”. When he investigate the issue it transpired that the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans unsolicited calls on cell phones so he went ahead with a class action lawsuit against Timberland.Timberland has now agreed to start a $7 million settlement fund to pay compensation to those affected by the unsolicited text messages although Weinstein will only be entitled to $5000 of this money.
Visiting the official website of the settlement fund allows claimants to complete a claim form detailing the exact dates they received the messages. Compensation is being capped at $150 per person but only if they can remember the date of the text message.
The fund is effectively meaningless because very few people will be able to remember when they received a spam text message dating back to 2003.
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