County joins successful consumer protection suit

SANTA CRUZ >> A coalition of district attorney’s offices, including Santa Cruz County’s, secured a $550,000 settlement with the parent company of social networking site Classmates.com during a recent consumer protection lawsuit.

PeopleConnect Inc., agreed to pay $400,000 in penalties and costs and, up to $150,000 in restitution after a lawsuit for alleged California’s Automatic Renewal Laws violations was filed by the California Auto Renewal Task Force

The coalition’s suit alleged that Classmates’ online sign-up process failed to make certain required statutory disclosures about their automatic renewal subscriptions in a clear and conspicuous manner and failed to secure the consumer’s “express, affirmative consent,” as required by law, according to a press release from the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office. The prosecution team also alleged that Classmates’ post-payment acknowledgment failed to supply a toll-free telephone number, email address or another timely and easy-to-use mechanism for cancelation — also a violation of the automatic renewal law.

Classmates.com is the latest in a series of consumer protection judgments related to this coalition, with recent similar wins against Home Chef in January, Match.com in December and CheckPeople LLC in October.

The consumer protection task force includes the District Attorney Offices of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara counties, and the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office.