Nobody Was Looking For Him.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 12:41:58 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

You can file this one under Stupid Lawsuits or Fight for Consumer Justice.  Believe it or not, there lives and breathes a person who responded to an email who learned the sender wasn't being truthful.  So mortified at being lied to by email (not to mention loss of money) Anthony Michaels of San Diego is taking the sender to court for successfully duping him.

The sender in question was the "high school, college or military" reunion site, classmates.com.  If you have an unfiltered email in-box, you've undoubtedly received at least one message from the site informing you that oodles of your former classmates are trying to find you.  If you've gone to the link helpfully provided by classmates, you quickly learn that, if you're really interested in finding out who's been looking for you and contacting them in return, it will cost you a fee.  That's what Michaels found out and did last Christmas.  But, once he paid the (US)$15 for a quarterly membership and completely explored the site, he discovered the ugly truth - nobody he ever knew was really looking for him.

In his complaint (pdf doc), filed in California state court says: "Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts ... Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile."  In fact, Michaels alleges that no classmates.com member who viewed his profile "were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter."  Michaels is seeking class action for his suit because there are "hundreds of thousands" of victims like Michaels who were duped out of their money.  He might have a point because consumeraffairs.com receives a ton of complaints about the site.  And the Better Business Bureau gives classmates.com a lukewarm C+ rating.  And the reason for that rating is "number of complaints received."

As to the "chuckle factor" of suing a site like classmates.com over a $15 fee, plaintiff attorney Scott Kamber says these cases "are rooted in a real consumer fraud that influences a consumer purchase decision" and there is a financial benefit accruing to classmates.com.  Legal expert Mark Rasch said classmates.com might have a defense.  If a person was trying to contact Michaels but lying about their former relationship with him to classmates, the web site would be in the clear.  "This comes down to knowledge and intent on the part of Classmates.com."  Michaels' complaint seeks refund of millions in subscription dollars and fines for deceptive advertising.