• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 18, 2017

A California resident has sued Snapchat for allegedly violating a robo-texting law by sending him a text message reading "Happy Snapping!"

Dave Vaccaro alleges in a class-action complaint that he wasn't a Snapchat "customer," and never provided his phone number to the service. He also says he is charged a fee for all incoming calls.

Vaccaro claims that Snapchat violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send text message ads to consumers without their prior consent. That law also provides for penalties of up to $1,500 per message.

"The TCPA was designed to prevent calls and messages like the ones described within this complaint, and to protect the privacy of citizens like plaintiff," he alleges in the complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

He says he received the "Happy Snapping" message in January. His complaint doesn't specify any other messages he allegedly received from Snapchat.

Snapchat isn't the only Web company facing allegations that it violated the robo-texting law by sending messages to people who say they never signed up to receive them -- either because the company allegedly sent a message to the wrong number, or to a number that had once been associated with a different person's account. Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo are also among the roster of companies fighting similar lawsuits.