Florida Attorney General, Bill McCollum, has sued Buongiorno, “a trendsetting, independent mobile media and technology company driving the burgeoning cellphone entertainment and personalization industry,” alleging the company was engaging in blatantly deceptive business practices and cramming charges onto consumers’ wireless phone bills.
“For too long, not enough attention has been paid to the manner in which unscrupulous companies were conducting business in a proverbial Wild West of rogue Internet marketing. We are going to clean up this industry,” said Attorney General McCollum. “Internet companies will not be permitted to defraud and deceive Florida’s consumers.”
The lawsuit resulted from an investigation conducted by the Florida Attorney General’s newly created CyberFraud Task Force into deceptive marketing over the Internet.
Investigators determined that consumers responding to “free” ringtone offers for their cell phones were enrolled into subscription plans without their knowledge or consent. The monthly charges for these plans were billed to consumers’ cell phone bills.
The lawsuit against Buongiorno comes on the heels of the CyberFraud Task Force establishing new standards for affiliates promoting mobile phone products.
More details at http://myfloridalegal.com/.
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Chance for all webinairs to aid their fellow man by forwarding this article to their own Attorney General.
So far as I know there are very few other states wherein the AG has established an Internet Fraud Unit. Americans are well aware of corporate fraud such as Enron and Adelphia etc but it is the average citizen who is more likely victimized by internet fraud.
The phishing scams are well known by now but I lately have seen increasing evidence of schemes such as outlined in this article; even had AT&T help me this month in removing $19.95 charges for 2 months I discovered on my bill for an outfit I was totally unfamiliar with, and yes it involved having clicked on something on a web site. It was NOT a porn site!
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