Over five months after we first started covering some of the aggressive advertisements on Facebook, a class action suit is being filed on behalf of the users who were victims of reverse mobile billing scams. This was an inevitable suit although this really appears to simply be a law firm looking to profit from all of the scams. Named in the class action suit are the following companies, including some companies that have sponsored this blog:
- Zynga
- RockYou
- Offerpal Media
- Super Rewards
- Tatto Media
- Double Ding
- Gambit
- SendMe Mobile
- Video Professor
- MySpace
It’s clear that the law firm behind this has only begun its investigation into the practices of the listed companies as they are missing a number of organizations who were so aggressive that they participated in fraudulent activity. Mark Pincus has become the face of the scams following a video published by Techcrunch, which is unfortunate (to say the least) for the CEO and Founder of the largest social gaming company today.
Many developers on the Facebook platform made lots of money from aggressive advertising over the past couple years. Over the past year Facebook has turned up the heat on aggressive advertisers with scam advertising hitting a peak two weeks ago as Mike Arrington started calling attention to the questionable tactics used by some ad networks and publishers. So what’s the law firm behind the class action investigating? Right now they’re just looking for “complaints about unauthorized charges”. As described by the law firm behind the investigation:
Users of these games may have been charged without their consent for “special offers” that result in hidden charges to credit and debit cards, sometimes through the use of phone text messages and auto-recurring SMS subscriptions. Many of these companies and advertisers making “special offers” then make it very difficult — or impossible — for users to get their money refunded.
If you want to learn more about the class action, you can view details via the Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP website.
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to think the myspace ceo was beating his chest the other day — http://www.myspace.com/pressroom?url=/article_dis...
Comment by blog czar — November 13, 2009 @ 9:12 am
Thank goodness. We need to make an example of these scammers. How could people think they can do this to one another http://tinyurl.com/y8ltqg7
Comment by Lester — November 13, 2009 @ 9:35 am
Take down Pinkus. That man has no moral fibre as far as I'm concerned.
Comment by Stewdio Stix — November 13, 2009 @ 9:40 am
First of all, this is bogus, Clearly Arrington tried to find the first firm that would take up his cause. He is the leader in this crusade. This is so stupid.
Comment by role — November 13, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
I hope that the negative publicity and immoral actions of a few, don't damage a great social industry…
Comment by Bruce Christensen — November 14, 2009 @ 6:56 am
it's interesting that they have named facebook and myspace in the action, they might as well throw google in there as well!
Comment by dj adelaide — November 15, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Such is life. People get taken advantage of… and?
Comment by Mma Crave — November 16, 2009 @ 9:36 am