The Christie’s real estate brokerage in Westchester County has been named in a class action lawsuit accusing the firm of pestering consumers with robocalls.
Jonathan Weinberg of Las Vegas accused Christie’s International Real Estate Westchester & Hudson Valley of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), in a June 20 complaint filed in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
He has received “unauthorized solicitations” that have harmed him, the complaint states, “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy.”
Christie’s established itself in the Hudson Valley in 2019, with the opening of an office in New City, Rockland County, and has since opened offices in Chappaqua, Nyack, Scarsdale and White Plains.
Congress enacted the TCPA in 1991 in response to complaints about recorded telemarketer messages that used computerized auto-dialing technology.
Now telemarketers are supposed to block their calls to residential phone numbers where individuals have enrolled in the National Do Not Call Registry. But the unwanted calls persist, according to the complaint. This past December, for instance, nearly 138 million robocalls were placed daily.
Weinberg says he registered his home phone number in 2005. But beginning last September, he began receiving unwanted calls and text messages from a variety of real estate companies, including seven calls in 18 days from a number associated with Christie’s.
He claims that Christie’s hired a marketer to solicit clients for the firm’s real estate agents. He told the callers to stop, the complaint states, but the calls and text messages continued.
The first text message addressed him as “Steven” and the second asked him to verify his email address and review a home search profile “you just created.”
Weinberg has never dealt with a Christie’s agent, according to the complaint, he does not know who Steven is and he has never used the email he was asked to verify.
Had he found a home yet, he was asked, reviewed mortgage products or considered attending open houses “in your search area?”
The messages repeatedly referred to Chris and his assistant with the Byrne Homes Team, and led to a phone number for the voicemail of Mary JoAnn Byrne, who works in Christie’s Scarsdale office.
Weinberg is also suing on behalf of “hundreds, if not thousands” of people he believes have received similar calls and text messages.
He is demanding unspecified monetary damages and a court order requiring Christie’s to stop making unsolicited calls.
In reply to an email asking for a response to the allegations, Byrne, whose team is repeatedly cited in the complaint but who is not personally named as a defendant, said she had “no comment at this point.”
Weinberg’s attorneys, Stefan Coleman of Manhattan and Avi R. Kaufman, of Coral Gables, Florida, specialize in class action lawsuits and the TCPA.
Weinberg has filed at least four TCPA lawsuits this year in New York, including one that is nearly identical to the current case except for the defendant’s name.
In February he sued Christopher Petti, who works in the Christie’s Scarsdale office.
Petti did not file a formal answer to the allegations. On May 23, U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel Weinberg allowed Weinberg to file an amended complaint by June 2, and she set a June 23 deadline for Petti to answer the complaint or file a motion to dismiss.
On June 2, Weinberg filed to dismiss his case against Petti. Eighteen days later, his new case was filed against Christie’s.
