Verisign: There might be refund in your stars...

[SlashRoot.Com]

Verisign: REFUND Anyone?

... The Federal Trade Commission charged VeriSign with deceptive-business practices on Thursday in U.S. court in Washington after the firm sent out "domain name expiration notices" to competitors' customers in the spring of 2002.

VeriSign warned domain-name holders that they could lose control of addresses like "www.example.com" if they did not promptly send $29 to VeriSign.

The forms were intended to trick domain owners into unwittingly transferring their accounts to VeriSign, the FTC charged.

VeriSign agreed to provide refunds or a year of free service to thousands of customers under a class-action settlement reached earlier this year in a California court. Friday's FTC settlement, in which the company did not admit or deny guilt, means that it could face steep fines if it resorts to such marketing tactics again.

VeriSign must also allow the FTC to monitor its marketing efforts for the next five years.

"This matter relates to a marketing campaign that ended more than a year ago," VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin told Reuters. "VeriSign cooperated fully with the FTC and is pleased that the matter is fully resolved."

An FTC official declined to comment...

Looks like FEDs are finally catching up with these bad boys.

Complete news story avaiable at:
http://reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=governmentFilingsNews&storyID=3447335

 

[RJ]

Good news, Shri. Thanks for posting thie one.

I'm sure there were thousands of people that got suckered by those very deceptive mailings.

I hope they go after 'Domain Registry Of America/Canada' also. I still get dozens of those letters from these guys every month!

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

Originally posted by -RJ-
I hope they go after 'Domain Registry Of America/Canada' also. I still get dozens of those letters from these guys every month!

Save those letters! That's possibly one count of mail fraud for each and every one of those fraudulent mailings that DRoA, DRoC and its clones are sending out.

I find it equally interesting that Verislime agreed for a 5 year oversight by FEDs on its marketing practices. It would quite interesting to see if this makes any difference. FTC seems to have a better luck (relatively speaking) with these folks than those toothless paper tigers at ICANN.

 

[RJ]

Shoot, I should have been saving those? They make such good kindling for my fireplace.

I haven't suffered any harm from them, other then when they suckered a client of mine into 'renewing' and I had to suffer a week trying to get access to update their domain's nameservers.

Good point about FTC vs. ICANN.

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

IANAL, but I think an act of mailing of fraudulent invoice in itself is sufficient to be deemed mailfraud. If I am not mistaken, it ain't necessary for any actutal damage to occur. The penalties are cumulative, upto 10k/count if my memory serves me right. Not sure about the amount though. May be a good idea to check with the town postmaster.