Leadsmarket–which bills itself as “The Leading Marketplace for Consumer Loans Leads”– if acing a new TCPA class action and it is part of a pretty clear trend.

For many years lead gen marketplaces were mostly outside of the TCPA fray, but following the success of the Wolf pursuing QuoteWizard recently the Plaintiff’s bar has become much bolder about pursuing marketplaces directly–and not just buyers and sellers.

In the new Leadsmarket suit the Plaintiff alleges it is responsible for texts sent by publishers in its network:

Marketing Labs would send SMS text messages to consumers for the purpose of driving traffic to Nesmetaju websites. LeadsMarket would then sell the consumer data entered into Nesmetaju websites to lenders in the subprime/payday lending industry.

MARKETING LABS LLC and NESMETAJU, LLC, are also named in the suit.

The class identified in the complaint is:

Do-Not-Call Registry Class: All persons in the United States where: (1) the
person registered their phone number on the National Do-Not-Call Registry 31
or more days; (2) the person’s number was registered to an individual rather
than a business; (3) the person received two or more calls from Marketing Labs
within twelve months; and (4) those text messages were for the purpose of
driving web traffic to a website owned by Nesmetaju.

This new suit is yet another reminder of the TCPA risks to ALL players in the leadgen space. Just because you operate a marketplace doesn’t mean you’re immune to TCPA suits.

While the buyers and makers of calls have the most risk, sellers and marketplaces often find themselves named in suits as well.

We’ll keep an eye on this. You can read full complaint here: predocketComplaintFile (9)