Marriott International has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Virginia against the unknown perpetrators (“John Does”) responsible for illegal and fraudulent “robocalls” misusing Marriott’s name. The suit claims these bad actors are using Marriott’s brand for their own commercial gain in violation of state and federal laws. Marriott plans to “aggressively” pursue the identities of the robocallers to stop the illegal calls.
More than 18 billion prerecorded telephone calls were made in the U.S. last year. Four months into 2021, that figure has already reached 7.2 billion, according to the YouMail Robocall Index.
In a statement, Marriott claimed that the company and its customers have been aggressively targeted by these robocallers. Illegal robocalls in the U.S. fraudulently claiming to be from Marriott increased in 2020 to a peak of 7 million per month.
“Marriott has undertaken this federal lawsuit against illegal robocalls primarily to protect our customers, but also to protect our brand name and intellectual property,” said Stephanie Linnartz, president, Marriott International. “Marriott’s fight will not stop with the filing of today’s complaint—we will continue to consider and leverage all tools at our disposal to identify and bring to justice the bad actors behind these illegal and fraudulent robocalls.”
Marriott has leveraged the Industry Traceback Group and YouMail to help stop the calls. The ITG, which is designated by the Federal Communications Commission as the official robocall traceback consortium, identifies the origination point of illegal robocalls. YouMail, a company that protects consumers with app-based call protection services, identifies problematic numbers and robocalls using a combination of its recently patented audio fingerprinting technology, call patterns and consumer feedback. Marriott is working together with both the ITG and YouMail to identify the perpetrators and track their activity.
On Dec. 3, 2020, Marriott updated and reissued a public statement to confirm that Marriott is not responsible for the fraudulent robocalls, nor has it authorized them. Marriott has received many consumer complaints about fraudulent robocalls mentioning Marriott, leading the company to file this lawsuit to halt the deceptive and abusive telemarketing acts, practices and trademark violations.
In addition to the lawsuit, Marriott has provided information about the ongoing scam to the Federal Trade Commission and made clear that the company will work with regulators in their efforts to stop these illegal robocalls.