Marriott International Inc. said Tuesday that it has filed suit in Virginia against “unknown perpetrators” for making “illegal and fraudulent” robocalls that have been misusing the Marriott name. The hotel operator said it will “aggressively pursue the identities of the robocallers” to halt the calls. “Marriott has undertaken this federal lawsuit against illegal robocalls primarily to protect our customers, but also to protect our brand name and intellectual property,” said President Stephanie Linnartz. “Marriott’s fight will not stop with the filing of today’s complaint- we will continue to consider and leverage all tools at our disposal to identify and bring to justice the bad actors behind these illegal and fraudulent robocalls.” Marriott said one way to detect a robocall is that if there is a recorded message on a call that is answered, rather than a live person, it’s a robocall. Marriott’s stock, which rose 0.3% in premarket trading, has gained 6.0% year to date, while the S&P 500 has advanced 10.8%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
