Verizon Wireless has filed a lawsuit against a Florida business accused of sending thousands of spam SMS messages. Passport Holidays of Ormond Beach, FL purportedly sent more than 98,000 unsolicited messages concerning Bahama cruises to Verizon Wireless customers.
The lawsuit alleges that Passport Holidays and others violated the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act by using auto-dialing equipment to send large bursts of text messages to sequential phone numbers within very short periods of time.
Verizon also noted that Passport Holidays attempted to hide their identity and evade automated spam filters. The US wireless industry has aggressively fought spam because unlike email messages, each text message is paid for by the customer.