Class Action Blog : Class Action Lawyer & Attorney : Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz : Consumer fraud, Personal Injury

Class action lawsuits against domain name auction site SnapNames.com have been filed over the past few weeks after the company announced that a former employee was bidding against potential customers in domain name auctions.  SnapNames -- which resells expired domain names and runs hundreds of auctions a day -- calls itself the largest resale marketplace for domain names.  The class actions filed against it include persons and/or businesses that participated in SnapNames.com's online auctions.  The lawsuits allege that a former vice president at SnapNames.com secretly bid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past four years, leading to falsely inflated prices.

SnapNames.com, a subsidiary of Oversee.net, sent out notices last month that it had discovered an employee bidding on domain name auctions, and it is alleged that the employee participated in over 50,000 auctions.  In its notice, SnapNames said the shill bidding affected about 5 percent of all its auctions since 2005, with most of the activity happening between 2005 and 2007.  Some auctions in 2008 and 2009 were also affected, it said.  The former employee won the auction in less than 1 percent of the cases, but was allegedly able to drive up the purchase price of the domain names by millions of dollars.   Indeed, as a result of the internal employee bidding, the class action lawsuits allege the prices to purchase domain names were falsely inflated, leading to higher costs to buyers and greater profits for SnapNames.

If you or someone you know participated in an auction on SnapNames.com, please contact us immediately to discuss your legal options.

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A prevalent practice in the marketplace today is the use of the "FREE Trial" method to sell products.  Although this practice may have a legitimate purpose – to allow a potential customer to preview a product at no charge with the hope they will like it enough to buy it – all too often there are undisclosed strings attached to the so-called “free” offer.

For example, numerous consumer complaints have been made against GNS (now Nutra Pills Inc.), a company that sells a variety of nutritional and weight loss products online.  GNS offers consumers a "free trial" of a product and tells them they need only pay a shipping charge.  What GNS does not allegedly tell consumers is that the "free trial" only lasts for a few weeks and that they are automatically billed for the product.   In addition to billing after the trial period is over, GNS also enrolls consumers in an “Auto Ship” program where they are shipped and billed for a new supply of the product every month.  GNS has been subject to more than 1,000 complaints to the Denver/Boulder Better Business Bureau which has earned GNS an “F” rating from the bureau.

One consumer recently complained about GNS’s practices when she signed up for a so-called “free trial” of Acai Berry Edge, a weight loss product.  She was advised that all she needed to do was, “invest $3.97 s&h today then $39.95 per bottle at day 21 only if you are satisfied.”  The consumer was to receive her order in 7 to 10 business days but 17 days later it had still not arrived.  When she tried to cancel her order, GNS refused.  Instead, the consumer was told that she would need to return the product before a cancellation could be made.  Even after explaining that she had never received the product, GNS advised her that they would need to reship the product to her.  Once the consumer received the product she was trying to cancel, she would have to pay to ship it back.  Only then could the order be cancelled.

If you believe that you have been a victim of a "free" trial scam, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

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Many of us use popular websites such as eBay and Craigslist to buy and sell merchandise.  Yet even experienced sellers are being victimized by money order scams.  The way it works is that a buyer (usually from outside the county) agrees to purchase your merchandise, then sends you a money order for an amount in excess of the agreed upon price.  The seller is then told that a mistake has been made and the money order received by the seller was intended for a different purchase.  The seller is asked to deposit the money order, deduct the agreed upon price, then refund the balance to the buyer via Western Union.

While it sounds innocent enough, in reality the money order was a counterfeit.  Yet because the copied paper looks so realistic, the scam is not uncovered until the fake money order is submitted to the “Issuer” bank for collection.  By that time, the money you sent via Western Union, your merchandise, and the scammer are long gone.  Because the ultimate responsibility to know where checks and money orders are coming from rests with the consumer, one needs to be especially careful.

To avoid such scams, make sure you never send money to anyone you can’t identify.  Even if a refund is indicated, be sure the buyer’s funds clear first before transferring any money in return.  Also, beware of emails pretending to be from a known source, asking you to enter or confirm personal information.

If you have been a victim a fake check scam, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

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