Keystone Today

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro revealed that a lawsuit was filed against the New York-based company Fluent.

The company was allegedly involved in hundreds of thousands of unwanted robocalls that were placed to Pennsylvania residents, according to a news release from Shapiro's office. Fluent connects advertisers to potential new customers by using consumers' personal data. The company and its subsidiaries collected personal information and sold it to telemarketing companies. This information included the telephone numbers of thousands of people on the Pennsylvania Do Not Call List. Fluent's subsidiaries include Fluent LLC, CAC; American Prize Center, LLC; Deliver Technology, LLC; Rewardzone USA, LLC; and Samples and Savings USA, LLC.

“If a Pennsylvania resident registers their phone number on the Do Not Call List, it’s illegal for telemarketers to call them," Shapiro said in the news release. "Every company is obligated to comply with state and federal telemarketing laws, and Fluent failed to comply. These invasive robocalls are a growing problem – Fluent's phony actions cannot be used to obtain consumers' consent to receive unwanted calls."

Fluent obtained consumers' personal information when they signed up to receive promotional offers such as gift cards to Walmart and Amazon, the news release noted. The promotional opportunities did not include disclosures to warn customers that they agreed to receive telemarketing calls from hundreds of sellers by providing their contact information. Some of the sellers' products and services were completely unrelated to the promotional offerings. More than 4.2 million Pennsylvania consumers registered their information on one of Fluent's websites between 2018 and 2021.

Amy Schulman, senior deputy attorney general, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania's Pittsburgh office.