Refer-a-Friend SMS Campaigns — Litigation Trend Report (Interactive)

Understanding the trend

What is this trend?

Refer-a-friend (RAF) is a marketing feature where a company prompts an existing customer to invite a friend by text. The company supplies pre-composed promotional copy, a referral link, and frequently the SMS-sending infrastructure itself. When the friend has never opted in to receive marketing texts from the company, every RAF text can be a violation of the federal TCPA and — more aggressively enforced — state texting statutes such as Washington's Commercial Electronic Mail Act (CEMA), Florida's FTSA, and California's analogs. Statutory damages run $500–$1,500 per message, so a single RAF feature touching tens of thousands of contacts can produce eight-figure class exposure.

What caused it

Two forces converged in 2023–2025. First, in Jensen v. Capital One (W.D. Wash. 2024) and follow-ons, courts repeatedly held that companies cannot hide behind a 'the user sent it, not us' defense — Washington CEMA reaches anyone who 'assists in the transmission,' and Section 230 does not preempt that liability. Second, the Robinhood RAF settlement (Moore v Robinhood) and Block / Cash App RAF settlement (Bottoms v Block, $3M+ in fees) signaled to the plaintiffs' bar that RAF cases settle for real money. Specialty firms — Bursor & Fisher, Dovel & Luner, Crosner Legal, Zimmerman Reed, Tousley Brain Stephens — now run RAF investigations at scale, scanning fintech, retail, and gig-economy apps for any feature that prompts an SMS invite.

Practices driving the lawsuits

• Pre-composing the marketing copy and link the user 'sends' to a friend.
• Auto-sending the SMS from a company-controlled short code or number rather than the user's own phone.
• Surfacing the user's phone contacts and offering a one-tap multi-send invite flow.
• Paying the inviting user a cash or credit bounty per successful referral (treats the RAF text as commercial advertising).
• Failing to verify the recipient's prior express written consent before transmitting the RAF text.
• Continuing RAF outreach after a STOP reply, or sending RAF texts during state-restricted hours.