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Did AOL send bogus bills?

CNET

February 26, 2002

America Online's sales tactics have landed it in federal court, where it stands accused of billing customers for unordered merchandise hawked in aggressive pop-up advertisements on its Internet service. A lawsuit filed Friday in San Francisco by former subscribers alleges that the AOL Time Warner subsidiary "unlawfully charged" and withdrew funds for unordered merchandise from subscribers' credit cards, debit cards and checking accounts. The suit also claims AOL collected fees for shipping and handling costs.

AOL rebutted the charges Tuesday, saying it has a full-refund policy plus an online shopping guarantee for its members. The company noted that it regularly offers members an array of products that they can choose to purchase or decline.

Plaintiffs in Friday's lawsuit took issue with AOL's practice of welcoming members to the site with a pop-up ad pushing products. Members can bypass the ads by clicking a "No thanks" button or can request additional information about the product.

Attorneys who filed the lawsuit are seeking approval from the court to add thousands of other individuals whom they say may have similar complaints. A partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, which filed the suit, said his law firm has been contacted by more than 200 AOL subscribers with similar complaints. "By the time I got 50 calls, I figured there was a real problem here that needed to be solved. Most of these people tried to solve it with AOL, and apparently AOL has not made any effort to fix the problem, because it continues to happen."

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