San Diego - A class action lawsuit has been filed against the online marketing services company alleging fraud. The lawsuit claims online customers of Fandango.com, Priceline.com, Movietickets.com, Petco.com, FTD.com and Staples.com were victims of an alleged Internet scheme in which their credit cards were charged a monthly fee for a "discount club" membership they had never requested. The lawsuit has been filed in US District Court in Massachusetts and claims Webloyalty.com engaged in a "coupon click fraud" scam in which credit card information was automatically transferred to Webloyalty.com by its dozens of online business partners without consumers' knowledge or consent. Webloyalty.com allegedly violated consumers' privacy rights and engaged in deceptive business practices.
Stuart Davidson of Lerach Coughlin filed the suit:
After consumers made online purchases from various web retailers, a pop-up window appeared on their computer screens promising a $10 coupon on their next purchase. If consumers entered their e-mail addresses to redeem that coupon, their personal information, including credit or debit card number, was automatically transferred to Webloyalty.com. The company then automatically billed the consumer's credit or debit card a $9 or $10 monthly fee for a membership in its "Reservations Rewards" discount club. If consumers did not cancel the membership by contacting Webloyalty.com within 30 days, they were charged a recurring monthly fee. E-mails notifying consumers of the cancellation policy were typically disregarded by consumers as spam, or automatically screened out as spam by e-mail systems.
