September 10, 2005

All Your Money Are Belog To Us: Part II

If my dispute with the Classmates Dot Com scam is unfamiliar, and you're interested in taking such scammers to task, see the original post here. Classmate's response to my case, presented in an email, was to simply reiterate their right to extract funds from my account without my knowledge or permission, and to "compensate me" by offering to extend my "membership" by three extra months for free. Which is a little like offering someone a free bucket of scat. It's just the right attitude to take in a public relations strategy promoting a "helping hand" image for their company. The perfect mix of smarminess, cynicism, and untouchable arrogance.

So I'm giving them a little more "free" publicity, understanding fellow that I am.

Just in case it's not obvious, the implications of their claim that a "terms of service" contract--agreed to during the initial sign up of every client--covers any access to their customer's accounts that isn't vigorously and consistently resisted, basically amounts to a license to steal. Fundamentally what it means is that anyone who has ever signed up with this company had better have access to a good lawyer, or resign themselves to the possibility of having their pockets picked once a year, from now on...

Member Care wrote:

Hi Scott,

Thank you for replying. Florence is out of the office, but I'd be happy to assist you. I understand your concerns and frustration with the membership terms. Unfortunately, your membership is non-refundable as stated in the Terms of Service. However, I can offer you an additional 3 months for FREE. Please respond to this email and I'll be happy to update your membership.

And thanks for providing me another opportunity to share your "gotcha" emails with about 10,000 members of the public a day, some of whom are bound to be in your customer base. Please forward this email response, including this link to the aforementioned blog article, to someone on your executive staff willing to take personal and public responsibility for Classmates Dot Com's business practices, including your practice of unannounced and unpoliced "automatic renewals:"

All Your Money Are Belong To US.

The reason you're unlikely to get away with this much more, or the reason this practice of yours is probably going to become a big enough story to provoke a public response, is that it implies you have permanent access to the accounts of everyone who ever signed up for your service, without anyone being able to do a single thing about it. The only brake on the practice that there ever was is based on the supposed good faith of your company, which your refusal to give me a refund exposes as a myth. You would accomplish this little "trompe l'oil" by simply changing their renewal preference to "automatic" without their knowledge, providing them no notice of when their account is about to be, or has been, debited; and subsequently refusing to make restitution on the basis of a bogus "terms of service" contract. I have news for you, such "terms of service" don't cover fraud. But either a fraud investigation or a tort lawsuit would involve extensive discovery, during which time any emails or other messages that you delete, or any computer records you change, become actionable by themselves. And this also applie to any law firm you retain.

And this is nothing compared to the public relations cost to a company that markets itself as a compassionate and understanding service provider promoting romance and friendship, but which cynically regards the property of their clients the way a pickpocket looks at a Start Trek convention.

Simply put, I did not agree to your "terms of service" for any period other than that first year. Everything you taken since then has been taken without my authorization.

My mother taught me to regard what you're doing as theft. Maybe your mommy taught you something else, but I'm willing to bet there are more responsible mommies out there in the public than crooked mommies.

We're very excited about new features we recently introduced: Quick Notes, My Visitors and the redesign of our website. Quick Notes allows you to send or receive a pre-written note from another member. You can see how many people have come to your profile by viewing the My Visitors information. And, we recently improved the look and feel of our site. There are many more new features and benefits coming soon!

And I'm very excited about taking you to task for what is clearly an unethical, and quite probably an illegal, practice. And I'm betting that a lot of your current customers will want to know about this, as well.

We hope that you'll continue to find value by locating and staying connected with school friends, co-workers and military buddies.

I've told you before, I've never found an iota of value in your company or its service, which is why I've never knowingly renewed the service.

Scott, I hope this information was helpful. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

Well, I'm letting you know now. You can refund every cent you're ever extracted from my account without my authorization, and if you're smart you'll also issue an abject apology for your clearly anti-customer, anti-public, cynical and unethical business practices.