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It is about time! Don't a lot of dating sites do this as well. A person signs up for the \"free membership\" and they get sent fake contacts to make them pay for the \"gold\" or whatever membership only to find that no one is contacting them?
To be honest, I never really believed those ads, especially since I don't have a profile on CM.com. And how could they know that someone was looking for me if I don't exist on the site? Reminds me of those flash/audio ads that tell me over my speakers that I've won a NinWii...
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@TemporaryError: I'd imagine he's suing less over those ads, and more over the \"So-and-so many people have viewed your profile- pay us money to find out who!\" e-mails they send out.
@TemporaryError: i've never believed them either, or taken the time to even click on one of their ads...but i'm glad to see someone's finally taking action against them if only because i find the ads annoying.
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Classmates missed their opportunity. They were one of the first social networking sites on the scene. Instead they blew it and made you pay for any feature that would make being a member worthwhile.
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@apronk: You are so right. I remember when Classmates first came out. I thought that everyone would be signing up for that. How neat would it be to be able to keep in touch with all your friends in one place and not worry about changed emails address, etc. They were so close, now people would be better off just to create a facebook group.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-160819-100x100.png\")
Damn, now there was a case worth suing over. I too fell into depression after I found out my mongoloid classmates in high school didn't give a rats ass about where I was 13 years later :(
Just kidding... anyone I really cared about in high school eventually found me on Facebook or MySpace over the past 4 years.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1037-100x100.png\")
@apronk: Agreed, it's their own dumb fault they botched was a pretty revolutionary idea at the time as we've seen now with MySpace and facebook's success. Classmates deserves and financial woes that come their way.
As much as I think that guy is a moron and survival of the fittest should apply online as well, that site does strike me as the same type of scumbag company that would make adware so I hope they lose.
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This story brightened my dark, gloomy day.
Who would be eligible for that class? Anyone who's graduated high school in the last 40 years?
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@rpm773:
Oh yes it is rpm773, I've been waiting for this type of action for a long time. I got less than stellar service,honesty when Juno ISP was supposed to give me a free month trial, but yet charged me right after I signed up. Classmates are a division of United Online.
\"Classmates class of '09\" has a nice ring to it.
I have a classmates.com profile like a lot of people and I really never liked the site. We were coming up on my 10 year reunion and I got a message that said that I had comments on my profile but to see them I would have to pay $XX.XX to join. I paid and the \"comments\" on my profile were just footprints from people reading my profile. The assholes will never see another dime from me.
Of course anyone over the age of 15 in America should know false advertising this obvious when he sees it. That being said, it IS false advertising, and I am staunchly in favor of any action taken to curb it.
@tc4b: I agree... I'm actually surprised this hasn't occured to me, but false advertising is illegal... and yet we just seem to let it go on the internet. c'mon, I know I'm not the 1 millionth visitor to your website, I know that Kathy, the 23 year old schoolteacher from just down the road isn't trying to contact me, but somehow we've managed to just gloss over these lies as part of the internet noise, when in reality it's so much worse than that. I agree, kudos to this guy, and I'm amazed that nobody has done this before.
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@tc4b: Right. Why should we put up with it when companies lie to us? Maybe it's the way it is, but it doesn't have to be that way, if we fight it. Good for this guy.
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Ooo! I hope they get sued out of existence! This is one grave I have no problem dancing on.
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Classmates dot com did that add-on of WLI*Reservations at $10 a month on the credit card of my friend, an incredibly sweet not-very-computer-savvy older gentleman. Luckily for him he reads his credit card statements.
This story is being overblown. I've never gotten anything from Classmates that says any specific person is looking for you, just that people have visited your profile and left messages. They never say that the people are old classmates that I have seen. This court case doesn't have a leg to stand on. You KNOW Classmates would never word their messages in a way that would open them to a lawsuit. They have many more lawyers that are smarter than us to CYA on this wording. Sure, Classmates is nothing but an ad bomb these days. But that's not illegal.
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@Trencher93: I am a member of classmates.com and have been since they started up, but I've never paid them a dime. That said, I have been receiving those emails lately that do indeed say that I have messages waiting for me and to sign up for the Gold membership so I can view them. So, yeah, they did actually send out an email worded that way. They're toast. Or at least they should be.
@Trencher93: Really? I get \"your old classmates are looking for you\" emails from Classmates *all the time*. There are separate emails that say \"see who's viewed your profile\", which suggests that the other one means people are leaving messages, or have in some way indicated that they want to communicate with you.
I assumed it was people just wandering through, but occasionally considered ponying up the money to find out who.
Personally, I think that if you have created a profile and classmates then sends you an email saying that other users are looking *for you*, then it should in fact mean they are trying to find you... Not that someone viewed your profile and went \"nah, not her.\"
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@Tightlines: You don't need to pay to set up a profile. You pay in order to read messages, view comments, or see who has visited your profile.
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@CFinWV:
Which is the garbage part, at the very least, they should show WHO the message is from (if there is a message), and not just that there is a message.
IE, why would I sign up to read a message from someone I don't want to talk to?
/besides, anyone that could find me on classmates.com, can find my profile elsewhere on the net
@Trencher93: Someone work for Classmates.com? I have also seen these spam e-mails saying one of your classmates is looking for you. Though I just hit Junk. I'm in contact with 90% of my class through social networking sites. Classmates.com is useless these days.
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@Trencher93: Well, there's at least one class-action lawyer who thinks he's smarter than us AND classmates.com's lawyers. We'll see what happens.
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Good. I hope someone goes after www.match.com next and their bogus 6 months free BS.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-294841-100x100.png\")
@Maulleigh: match.com IS being sued based on their 6 months free after 6 months thing. Or at least was being sued, I think they were attempting to settle out of court to keep it hush hush. Not sure if that happened.
@Maulleigh: Oh, now THAT one just makes me laugh.
\"Is our service so pathetic that in 6 months we can't get you a decent date? No worries - you can suffer through another 6 months of our pathetic service for FREE!\"
Something new HAS been going on with this site. I did not sign up for gold. Recently I have been barraged with emails stating that there are people who have left messages for me or have left their name. Seems like a new person or two shows up every week, and I get a new \"notification\" email. For this unbelievable popularity to have just cropped up all of a sudden is beyond suspicious. Anyone who pays them will find what the previous writers have said: false names or unknown people \"viewing\" the profile. Stay away from Classmates. They are predatory false advertisers. I hope the class-action suit works, but I fear they will only have to agree to some cheap and noninjurious remedy that helps nothing.
These people are annoying SPAM meisters. It seems that almost everyday I get email from them saying that new people signed up, my classmates want to see me, people looked at my profile, new photos, new updates, etc.
Like a child at a grocery store screaming for his mommy to buy him candy for an hour straight, they will do anything to get you to spend a dime.
I actually paid for it once, and while I didn't find any classmates I did find old Navy buddies that I lost contact with. So for the money I paid, way back in the day, it was worth it. I wouldn't pay for it again. Especially with things like Facebook and Myspace that are free.
Quick! Someone email the Nigerian scam to this guy!
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What is the point of Classmates.com when Facebook and Myspace let you search by highschool and graduation year anyway?
Classmates.com has somehow survived the dotcom burst. Cockroaches!
I have a fake profile on Classmates, just so I can look around. I'm registered with an extremely fake name like Johanestoonan VanBildenbergersmithen to a highschool I never attended and I still get span saying \"Find out who has signed your guestbook Johanestoonan\" and \"Johanestoonan, Your classmates are looking for you!\" That's how I know it's B.S., nobody in the history of the world has ever searched for Johanestoonan VanBildenbergersithen let alone signed his guestbook.
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@testsicles: Wait, you pay to have a fake profile to prove to yourself that no one is looking for you?
@Tightlines: I don't pay, I just have a fake profile to see whatever you see with a fake profile that you wouldn't see without logging in. Not much difference. But I still get the emails, that was my point.
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I've never used them. I find their pop-ups annoying enough that it turned me off to ever signing up, so I guess that saved me.
People seem to have no trouble finding me. Probably because I have an unusual last name, and have lived in the same city since 2000, and the same house since 2002. Plus there really isn't anyone from my class that I care to talk to, barring a couple of buddies, one of which (are you ready for this?) recently SENT ME A LETTER!!!!
It's been a looooonnngg time since I got a letter!
Just imagine if your mailman came to your door and said \"A friend of yours has sent a letter...pay me $40 and I'll let you have it\" and it turns out it's actually a Val-Pack mailer!
Good for him. Classmates.com offers no service of any value. It sucks up bandwidth on the internet, and it tries to bilk people out of money. The sooner it dies the death it deserves the better off we will all be.
Classmates.com deserves to die. Please kill it.
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Oh come on Ben! Anyone who has any sense would not believe those ads in the first place. I guess we waited 13 years for someone both dumb enough to buy into their ads and had the wherewithall to actually sue...
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@copious28: I think it's one thing when one of us tech-savy people fall for this. Yeah, you're an idiot.
But when it's someone who is still naive and believes that the internet is full of wonderful people, then I have some sympothy.
I've received these e-mails from Classmates.com before. I've always ignored them since I have facebook.
I'm surprised they're still around. Don't we use Facebook for this now?
Classmates.com = dinosaur. Who needs them when you have Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, etc.?
@dasunst3r: Wait, Orkut's contributed more to Western civilization than the name of a Bonde do Rolê album?
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Me too with the fake name account. Amazing all these buddies that are dying to connect with me again after all these years. I think they deserve some bad publicity even if the lawsuit has no merit.
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I have a Classmates profile. I got a paid account right around the time of my 10-year class reunion and found some people through there. I did let the paid account lapse though - like others have said, why should I pony up when I can find people on Facebook and Myspace for free? Not to mention that earlier this year a guy from my high school set up a site on Ning for anyone who grew up and/or went to school in my hometown. It's got the message boards and groups and things, is much more active than Classmates, and it's free. : )
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Normally I don't support ridiculous lawsuits, but this Web site deserves to be sued to extinction. I can't believe a pre-Web 2.0 dinosaur that advertises with spam and popups is still roaming the Web.
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I get emails from CM all the time saying someone was looking at my profile. However since I put my email address in my profile hidden from the CM scanners and have not received an email, I doubt seriously that anyone really wants to contact me.
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@dwneylonsr: Same here; I even logged in recently to look after getting several emails telling me classmates have signed my guestbook, and sure enough, my email is right where I left it for anyone who actually reads my profile. Now, I do understand even as many years on into this thing called internet that people are naïve and/or not tech-savvy, but if you're reading a real person's profile on Classmates, you have sense enough to see someone's put their email address there for you. This guy's lawsuit is confirmation (to me) of false advertising, and I say, \"go for it.\"
This is total nonsense. What a waste of human effort. I begrudge this man and all the lawyers involved the food they eat.
This is also going to cost the taxpayers money by tying up the judicial system.
This man and his lawyers should think of something productive to do instead of this B.S.
Yeah as soon as I learned that myspace and facebook had groups for my high school, suddenly it was very clear that classmates.com was always quite useless.
Sadly you know there are people out there, right now, purchasing classmates gold memberships. These are probably the same people who think myspace and facebook are the devil.
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@apronk: Yeah, what is up with that? I met up with some old friends over the weekend and I was soundly ridiculed for being on myspace and facebook.
I got emails DAILY saying several classmates have viewed my profile and I should pay to join so I can see who they are. I got annoyed with it and unsubscribed. I still got emails so after about a week I looked at their FAQs about site usage. None of them answered why unsubscribing didn't do any good but they did ask if the FAQs had been helpful. I replied to that by asking them to direct me to the section that tells me what to do when they completely ignore my request to unsubscribe. It's been about a week now and no more emails. Free at last free at last. Classmates.com is shite. They need to crawl off to a corner and die quietly.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-132529-100x100.png\")
You can take the ass out of classmates, but then all you'd have is clmates.
I hope they just go away...I am so sick of seeing that stupid ad that reads.....\"She married him?\"....crap....who gives a rats butt who married whom?
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gotta love advertisements designed to pray on old, uninformed people
My mom was a gold member of CM.com.That is how I found my dad.
why don't they add reunion.com to that list. i get \"13 people have searched for you\" all the time. i did sign up for 3 months on CM and it is worthless.
I am signed up at classmates.com, but do now have a membership. I get those emails almost everyday saying that someone has visited my profile. That don't mean I'm gonna pay extra to see who is it. I just delete it. Don't be gullible like him. Although I do think that it is a rip off, I don't think that he has a very good case. He's just someone trying to get an easy pay day. Good Luck anyway.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-650340-100x100.png\")
From the sleazy methods Classmates has always employed - the porn matchmaking business model - I'd always presumed they were just a cleaned up version of something like Amateurmatch, which is notorious for spamming the daylights out of email addresses. It should be pretty obvious by now that come-on lures such as \"free to SIGN UP\" or the software industry's equivalent - \"free to download\" (but not to use) - are bait & switch gimmicks to avoid.
I get these all the time..
\"Someone Signed Your Guestbook Yesterday
Your Guestbook
1 new signature yesterday
15 previous signatures
Open your guestbook.
Your guestbook received 1 new signature yesterday!
Who's thinking of you?
Take a look >>\"
Funny, when I WAS a paying member years ago, I was NOT getting all these \"visits\", \"signatures\" and the like. How did I suddenly get so popular??
I went to high school 40 years ago.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-99999-100x100.png\")
I've been on a \"remove personal information from the web\" kick lately, and found out that I actually signed up for a classmates.com account YEARS ago, when I was in middle school. I don't even remember doing it, but my name is on their site.
I sent them an e-mail to see how I could get the information off, and they told me to sign up for a new account and then I could do it that way. Silly me, I actually listened, so now I have my name on there twice and I can't get the customer service department to help me, probably because it's run by robots.
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File that one under dumbass.