LOOSE LANGUAGE: Health Choice Now Loses Arbitration Bid in TCPA Claim Involving C4R and What If Media Group Websites Because of Surprisingly Sloppy Wording

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The wording of disclosures matters.

Weird to say in a world where people use GenAI slop to suffice as terms and conditions. But if you expect a court to actually enforce your terms– especially arbitration provisions– you really need to pay attention to the details.

Take the remarkable case of Carter v. Health Choice Now, LLC  2026 WL 2057433 (S.D. IA July 1, 2026).

There the defendants allegedly made calls to the Plaintiff without consent to solicit insurance purchases.

Defendants claimed the Plaintiff visited various websites that resulted in the calls– and that some of those websites contained arbitration provisions requiring Plaintiff to arbitrate his claims.

In particular, Health Choice Now, LLC claimed Plaintiff agreed to arbitrate disputes arising out of calls by virtue of is visiting a website called go.topcreditcardfinder. com.

But there’s more (and less) to the story.

Per the ruling: Health Choice Now has an affiliate called C4R Media Corp. which is a marketing company that provides advertising and customer acquisition services through, among other things, the operation of user-facing websites. (ECF 52-1, ¶¶ 3–4.) C4R and Health Choice Now are under common control of What If Media Group, LLC. (Id., ¶ 4.)

A guy named Ben Zitter, the Chief Compliance Officer for C4R, claimed the Plaintiff visited C4R’s websites at least thirty-eight times between February 9, 2022, and May 29,
2025. (Id., ¶ 8.) This includes visits to the following websites:

  •  win.click2win4life on various dates between February 9, 2022, and May 27, 2023;
  • claim.theclassactionguide on March 28, 2022, and January 25, 2023;
  • help.unemploymentbenefitsguide in late May 2022 and October 7, 2023;
  • win.bestdayeversweeps on May 26, 2022, and March 19, 2023;
  • claim.foundmoneyguide on various dates between May 28, 2022, and April 29, 2023;
  • go.thepersonalfinancialguide  in early June 2022 and October 2, 2024;
  • go.thefreedailyraffle on June 7, 2022;
  • deals.thefreesampleshelper on October 30, 2022, and March 19, 2023;
  • go.topcreditcardfinder on various dates between November 5, 2022, and May 29, 2025;
  • win.omgsweeps.info on December 6, 2022, and March 12, 2023;
  • find.usaassistanceguide.com on April 29, 2023; and
  • go.creditguideusa.com on September 19, 2023.

Plaintiff apparently denies visiting any of these websites– which is deeply troubling if you think about it.

Regardless Health Choice now apparently believed their best chance of neforcing arbitration based on any of these websites is in connection with Plaintiff’s alleged visit to go.topcreditcardfinder.

Again plaintiff denied visiting the website but the court said it didn’t matter because the arbitration clause wasn’t eneforceable anyway.

Here’s why.

First, the 2025 version of the terms and conditions applied only to calls/texts made in the future– i.e. those Plaintiff “receives” not “received”– not those that had already been made;

Second, the 2025 version only opaquely defines “Company” to mean “an Internet property of topcreditcardfinder” which is not a real company and doesn’t exist;

Third, the 2023 version of the agreement only covered C4R, not affiliates or third-party beneficiaries.

Eesh.

So 12 properties to choose from and 2 agreements to enforce on the property it chose and Health Choice Now still could not find a properly worded arbitration clause to enforce.

You’d think a company like C4R– who is literally in the business of selling consumer data– would know how to draft proper consumer terms and conditions. But everyone cuts corners these days I guess.

Bottom line– arbitration denied. The case proceeds as a class action.

Take aways:

  1. Watch the present or future tense wording– focus on requiring all disputes (whether they arose now, previously, or in the future) in drafting your clauses;
  2. Make sure everyone that may wish to rely on the provision is covered by the provision (and lead buyers in particular need to be cautious here!);
  3. Review your terms and conditions regularly– and not with AI people– to assure they are up to date and enforceable.

Love you all. Chat soon!

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Published by Eric "Czar" Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

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