SUED AGAIN: Lending Tree Sued In ANOTHER TCPA Class Action–This Time Over Failure to Identify Itself in Promotional Text Messages

Lending Tree is no stranger to TCPA lawsuits. It recently paid $19MM to settle a case involving Quote Wizard and then was almost immediately sued again in another TCPA class action. Not to mention all the class actions out there arising from it selling allegedly bad leads to buyer partners who then get sued. Well just yesterday Tree received more TCPA bad news– it was sued for allegedly sending promotional SMS messages without properly passing Caller ID information. In Model v. LendingTree, Inc., Case No. 8:26-cv-01749 (C.D. Cal) a consumer named Erica Model contends she received multiple promotional messages from LendingTree. Per the complaint, “more than one of these” failed to disclose the name of the telemarketer. The Plaintiff seeks to represent a class of: All persons within the United States to who, within the four years prior to the filing of this action through the date of class certification, Defendant (or a third-party acting on behalf of Defendant) placed two or more telemarketing calls in a 12- month period without the transmission of caller identification information that included either CPN or ANI and the Defendant or telemarketer’s name For anyone wondering– yes this is a viable theory at least in many jurisdictions. A marketer MUST pass on CNAM with SMS messages to avoid the risk of a TCPA class action– and I know that can be very difficult in some settings. Take aways: Lending Tree in more TCPA hot water; Marketers MUST pass along caller ID information in phone calls AND text messages if they want to avoid class action lawsuits!