SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — In a perverse case of food delivery whack-a-mole, a Maryland man claims he's been on the receiving end of countless calls from DoorDash, and he can’t convince them to stop.
Potomac, Maryland, resident Phillip Lendenbaum sued DoorDash in federal court Wednesday, claiming he's received an endless stream of phone calls from DoorDash since he was laid off from his job as general manager of a hotel in 2020. While he was employed there, the hotel used his cellphone number as the contact number for the hotel’s DoorDash deliveries.
He says he's still getting calls.
“After plaintiff left the job, he received constant calls from defendant to his cellular phone which featured prerecorded messages,” Lendenbaum says in his complaint. In 2021, he says Door Dash called him daily with the same pre-recorded message.
Over time, however, Lendenbaum says he has spoken with multiple supervisors at DoorDash, each assuring him they would take care of the problem.
“Despite those assurances, plaintiff continues to receive bothersome and harassing phone calls to his cellular telephone every day, featuring the same prerecorded message,” Lendenbaum says in his complaint.
He says he had his former employer contact DoorDash, but it hasn’t helped. Blocking the telephone numbers generating the calls hasn’t accomplished anything either — they simply use a new one and call him again, he says.
To add insult to injury, Lendenbaum says he gets charged for incoming calls.
The repeated calls violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and his privacy, Lendenbaum says. Enacted in 1991, and signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush, the law was intended to protect consumers from the onslaught of autodialers and what are now commonly known as robocalls.
Lendenbaum seeks a jury trial and $500 for each call made in violation of the law, which prohibits such calls to cellphones, and up to $1,500 for each call if the jury finds DoorDash made the calls knowingly.
He is represented by Todd M. Friedman of Woodland Hills, California. Lendenbaum declined to comment on his lawsuit.
DoorDash did not return a call for comment by press time.
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