Porn sites charged with billing for free pics
 

Dozens of porn sites have been hit with a lawsuit claiming they have been billing punters for eyeing images that were offered for free.

The sites named in the suit include Playgirl.com and Highsociety.com. The Federal Trade Commission and the New York attorney general filed the lawsuit yesterday. FTC director Steven Baker rated it as one of the 'biggest Internet scams I've ever seen.'

The customers have been getting billed because they give up their credit card details to take a free tour around the X-rated sites. Like many porn sites and e-commerce sites, Playgirl.com and Highsociety.com require credit card details as proof visitors are over 18. You have to enter your card details even if you're just after a free thrill.

The complaint states people have been charged between $20 and $90 a month in membership fees after visiting the sites. In some cases they have had to cancel cards just to stop the payments. The suit also claims that the company behind the sites, Crescent Publishing Group, rarely gives out phone numbers so punters found it difficult to call and challenge the charges.

Reuters reports that the suit states the 'free tour' Web sites took $141 million in revenue during the first 10

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08..._with_billing/

aol has 1 chargeback a year

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I was just thinking the same thing..

Mainstream companies are using the same methods , and often sneakier..

AOL should have been sued out of its shoes when it started for not telling people about long distance charges..

Most rural users signed up for the aol free trial and ended up with hundreds of dollars in phone bills.

Insert timeline pic.

Please go away!!!

Technically you could charge for the service, not the pictures. eg; "you pay us $35 a month and we give you a login/pass to all our areas containing these services, pictures, etc"

that is how you make money off of opensource software. you sell the service, not the product.

did you just figure out how to use an RSS feed reader or something?

How many old news posts are you going to make?

:1orglaugh

That story is old last year news.

That was dated August 24, 2000. And it was old news back then too.

haha...didnt they already put some italian dude in jail for this?

Lol Sooooo Damn Old

yeah, posting 5 year old news is now a felony. :1orglaugh

it should be :pimp

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Anyone that gives cc info for something free is taking a chance....

The Article is from 2000.

Wow, we need a major timeline pic here.