Did you party recently at the Desert Club in Israel? You may deserve compensation – a ruling issued following a class action requires the club to compensate the first 10,000 applicants who received marketing SMS messages from the club without authorization
A ruling by the District Court in Lod required the Desert Night & Day Club in Rishon Lezion and other clubs to compensate 10,000 people who received spam SMS messages without their consent, with marketing content. This is a class action lawsuit filed by the Yarkoni, Segev, Eldar law firm on behalf of the recipients, to whom the court ruled, presided over by Judge Rami Chaimovitz, a settlement amounting to approximately NIS 700,000.
The SMS messages were distributed by publicists employed by the club for marketing purposes and were sent according to the lists of people in their possession and without the permission of the recipients. The estimate of the number of potential victims was based on the scope of inquiries received regarding the sending of the text messages without authorization and was estimated at 10,000 people.
The parties to the petition estimated the damage to each member of the group at NIS 50 and agreed that the amount of compensation will be between NIS 500,000 and NIS 630,000 to be given to the public in each of the following benefits: a free drink, a free entrance ticket to an entertainment evening held at the club. The first 10,000 applicants will receive the benefit. Since the notices were sent by publicists and there is difficulty in locating the recipients themselves, it was agreed that a registration would be opened to receive the benefit, and that the clubs would be satisfied with receiving a statement from the registrants that they had received an advertising message. The benefit will be realized through the publication of a notice issued by the company. According to the ruling, the company will pay an amount An additional NIS 63,000 to a special fund for compensation from class action lawsuits.
Attorney Or Yarkoni Photo by Idan Gross
Attorney Or Yarkoni, a partner in the firm of Attorney Yarkoni, Segev, Elder said that “the procedure and its results send a clear message, the era is over in which entities will trade in the personal details of customers and harass them by advertising without consent. We hope that the high amounts that businesses are forced to pay will cause the necessary deterrence And these cases will be avoided in the future.”
Below is the amount of compensation for the first 10,000 applicants
The public will be able to choose one of the following options:
A. A free vodka-Red Bull or flavored vodka drink worth 63 NIS and 55 NIS, respectively, at the club subject to the claim or at another night club, the Inferno Club in Tel Aviv, except for events closed to the general public held in clubs.
B. A free entrance ticket to entertainment evenings held at the club that is the object of the claim or at the Inferno club on dates to be announced in advance and the entrance fee for which is NIS 50 or more.
third. A discount of NIS 50 on the purchase of an entrance ticket to entertainment evenings held at the club that is the subject of the claim or at the Inferno club on additional dates that will be published in advance for which the entrance fees exceed NIS 50.
The benefit will be given to the first 10,000 applicants to take advantage of the benefit, and it will be possible to exercise it on 110 Arab 27, at least, from the date of approval of the settlement agreement until the end of the benefit period, on October 1, 2023
How to redeem the benefit:
It was agreed that a registration would be opened to receive the benefit, and that the respondents would be satisfied with receiving a statement from the registrants that they had received an advertising message.
The realization of the benefit will be carried out through the publication of an appropriate notice that includes a link to a dedicated web page through which it will be possible to receive a barcode for the benefit according to the wishes of each member of the group.
The message and the link will be published in a prominent post on the pages operated by the club on the popular social networks “Facebook” and “Instagram” as well as on several pages operated by the publicists on the social networks.
In the wording of the notice, it will be explicitly stated that this is a benefit given in light of a compromise settlement in a class action.
The respondent will invest a total of NIS 500 per month to promote the promotion of the benefit 5 social networks.
The respondent will maintain an orderly electronic record of the messages of the group members who requested the realization of the benefit.
At the end of the benefit period, the respondents will submit to the court a detailed report regarding the extent of benefit realization.
The remaining amount will be transferred to the fund