One of the most important decisions a company can make when working with a vendor– either a lead vendor or any other kind of vendor– is whether they will stand beside you and help clean up a mess they made.
We know some lead providers– say. Lending Tree– have been less than willing to defend and indemnify companies sued for buying an allegedly bad lead from them. While others– like Everquote– have shown a willingness to step up to the plate where appropriate.
Its the same with marketing and outreach platforms.
Some companies honor their word and defend suits caused by their own negligence. Others will wildly hang a user out to dry even though they may have done nothing wrong other than choose the wrong vendor.
Well Podium Corporation is allegedly one of the bad actors that will cause trouble and then walk away and leave its users to clean it up– at least according to a lawsuit pending in here in California.
In Gaines v. LPC Survival, LTD 2026 WL 1772724 (C.D. Cal. June 16, 2026) the Plaintiff sued LPC alleging it continued to text him even after receipt of a stop request. The defendant was using the Podium platform and alleged it was Podium’s job to make sure stop messages were honored– i.e. that Podium screwed up and should have to answer for that mistake in defending the lawsuit on the Defendant’s behalf.
Rather than defending LPC, however, or attacking the Plaintiff Podium decided to attack the defendant! It moved to dismiss the third-party complaint on jurisdictional grounds leaving the defendant to fend for itself in a lawsuit allegedly caused by Podium. Not good.
The Court granted the motion to dismiss finding Podium had included terms in its agreement with LPC requiring litigation to take place in Utah only. So Podium is hoping for a little home field advantage and is not only standing behind LPC– it is making it litigate in two forums at once.
None of this is attractive to me or consistent with being an upstanding partner.
Now, I don’t know all the facts here. Maybe none of this was Podium’s fault and LPC just has it wrong. But I’ve seen enough of these suits to suspect Podium is shirking responsibility here (Podium if that’s not the case shoot me a note and I’ll do an update here.)
Will keep an eye on it but take aways is very clear: make sure you are working with vendor partners who will do the job they’re contracted to do and will stand by your side if they screw up. Its the measure of the integrity of a company and its people– very important stuff.
Hope all is well with you.
Much love.
Chat soon.