• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, January 5, 2015

Car service Uber has been hit with a potential class-action lawsuit accusing it of sending unwanted text messages to people's cell phones.

The case was brought on New Year's Eve by four individuals, three of whom say they provided their cell phone numbers to the company as part of an application to work as drivers. A fourth plaintiff says she never gave Uber her cell phone number.

All four argue that Uber violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send SMS ads without the recipients' consent.

The individuals who are suing -- Kerry Reardon, James Lathrop, Jonathan Grindell, and Julie McKinney -- allege in court papers that Uber inundated them with impersonal SMS messages. For example, Lathrop alleges that on Oct. 7, he received a text stating, “Uber: We are expanding our footprint in Oregon and want to get you on the road! Please check your email for next steps.”

Lathrop adds that Uber sent him 19 SMS messages between October and late December of last year. He says that he gave Uber his cell phone number as part of an application to work as a driver, but never completed the process. Lathrop also says that he did not ever “provide express consent to receive automated text messages to his cell phone.”

Grindell, who also says he never completed the driver application, alleges that he received text messages every day during the latter half of December. He alleges that he unsuccessfully tried to stop the messages by texting back the response, “Remove.”

He adds that Uber's “incessant” messages forced him to cut back on his use of texting, in order to avoid exceeding his monthly text-message limit.

The lawsuit against Uber came several weeks after a media report surfaced regarding complaints about the company's alleged texting practices.

Uber hasn't did not respod to Online Media Daily's request at press time.