They Sell Brake Pads. They Couldn't Hit the Brakes.

On Thursday, O’Reilly Automotive — the ~$71 billion auto parts empire, 6,695 stores, proud purveyor of brake pads to America — agreed to pay $18.8 million because someone in marketing had a galaxy-brain idea.

The idea: mass-text promotional messages to phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The list that exists specifically to stop companies from doing the thing O’Reilly decided to do anyway. Bold strategy, Cotton.

📱 The Do Not Call Registry is not a CRM database. It is a federal list. It has a federal statute. It has a federal penalty. O’Reilly’s marketing team apparently skipped that page. Or read it and thought nah.

💸 Settlement: $18.8 million. For context, that buys approximately 940,000 brake pad sets at O’Reilly retail prices. All because someone couldn’t resist texting strangers about a sale on windshield wipers.

They sell brake pads for a living. They couldn’t hit the brakes. Womp womp. 🎭