FCC slapped Lyft ride-share service over telemarketing

Long gone Lyft service has now received a notice from the US FCC for violating the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The parent company of First National Bank and Lyft both received a notice for delivering the marketing messages in context to their service on the customers phones. Apparently, the messages were being sent to force the customers to use the service again.

According to the notice, FCC warned both the companies for not violating the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act and send messages to only those customers who have opted in for that. As per the reports, Lyft is sending such messages to all of the customers irrespective of the fact that whether they have opted-in or not.

FCC said that the company isn’t following the policies mentioning on the ‘Opt Out’ terms and conditions, and still making the auto-dialed and pre-recorded calls and texts to the customers’ phones.

“The investigation into Lyft showed that while its terms of service state that a consumer may opt-out of receiving auto-dialed and/or prerecorded telemarketing texts and calls by using ‘provided unsubscribe options’, the company does not, in fact, provide unsubscribe options or any information or links that would allow consumers to easily opt out of receiving such calls and texts,” the FCC said.

The commission also included that company’s policy violates the rules, where they ask the users for to opt-in to use the service. If somehow, a customer discovers the opt-out page, Lyft will not provide any future services till a client is ready to receive the marketing calls and messages.

Apparently, doing so is a violation of the law that customer do not require any marketing sign-up before they can use the service. Lyft has been told to remove all of these policies before FCC investigates the issue any further.

Not only the Lyft but the Watchdogs are also claiming the First National Bank to force the users to sign-up for the service.

Calling everyone to sign-up for the ads and marketing calls to use the service is just another way by which company potrayed badly structured trust policy and value of a customer. Not saying the company has its moral compass broken, but also that it is failing to stand on the expectation of the customers.

Company’s graphs for user satisfaction are already falling badly, and rarely anyone is using the Lyft these days.

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