Reunion.com lawsuit may be on the horizon
Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams
Back in April, I wrote about a little case of Reunion.com spamming people's entire address books without explicit permission. It's a simple scam. You get an email from Reunion.com saying that Jane Smith has been searching for you, and you're asked to go to the site and sign up for a free account. Once you sign up, you get a message saying "We'll find your friends and family who are already members and also automatically invite any nonmembers to join (it's free!)."You agree to let Reunion.com access your email address book, thinking that you're going to have an opportunity to decide who gets invited and who doesn't. Instead, Reunion.com immediately sends an email to everyone in your address book. How embarrassing to have business contacts receive an email that you were looking for them on a high school reunion website! What about an ex-boyfriend receiving this email? Or a potential employer?
I've read comments from consumers all over the internet who fell victim to this scam. But now justice may be served as a law firm in San Francisco is investigating the case for possible legal action.Kronenberger Burgoyne, LLP is looking for consumers who have been victims of the Reunion.com scam. Specifically, they want:
- Copies of emails that were sent by Reunion.com to your address book or contact list
- Details about whether or not you had an opportunity to control who was emailed
- What was stated on the site when you signed up
- What the privacy policy said at the time you signed up
- Details about what happened after you signed up
From everything I've seen, it doesn't look like Reunion.com has stopped this practice of emailing your entire address book, even in light of the publicity the issue has received. Apparently, there's a lot of money to be made this way, and the incentive to stop upsetting consumers is too low.
If you've been wronged by Reunion.com and have evidence of what happened, you can contact the law firm directly.
Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-18-2008 @ 12:09PM
Wireless Phil said...
In the last 2 months I have received several of these e-mails from friends.
I warned them, but it was too late.
I looked at the sight, but didn't sign up. Other's weren't so lucky.
Reply
7-21-2008 @ 9:00PM
dc said...
This exact thing happened to me. I just signed up over the weekend. I explicitly remember checking the box to NOT send out emails to anyone! I have very personal reasons for people not knowing where I am living right now, as I just moved and have separated from my husband. This is causing me huge problems. I will be contacting the law office about the lawsuit.
Reply
7-24-2008 @ 2:33PM
kristin mac said...
Thank you so much. I was wondering about this. I have never gotten so much spam in my life, and it emailed everyone I know - work, my parents, my ex, etc. Grr.
Reply
8-05-2008 @ 3:20AM
Corinne Danzl said...
I got an email earlier today from a co-worker or so I thought. I clicked on it because it had that person's name in the "from" area. Once I opened it I saw that it was actually from Reunion.com. It said that my co-worker had added my name to his Reunion.com address book. It also invited me to click on a link to view his profile and photos so I did. When I got to the site it said that I would have to join for a minimum of $5 to be able to view the website. Thank goodness I didn't join. I've since found out that the $5 is a lie that you really get charged $60. I emailed my co-worker to ask him how he liked the website and he emailed back to say that he is not a member but that he'd received the same email and somehow his contacts had been stolen (including my name and email address). I hope that my contact information wasn't stolen from just clicking onto the link. Do I have to worry about that now?
Reply
8-05-2008 @ 5:40AM
trevor lawrie said...
Can anyone shut down these sites like reunion.com, theyre nothing but fraudsters and send all your contacts spam as if it were you, crooked bastards.
Reply
8-09-2008 @ 11:48PM
wendy said...
I too went into the site because it posed as a friend looking for me. I went to join as a free member, but later found out that this site was e-mailing everyone in my address book. A friend of mine came back to me to tell what happened, luckily he didn't open it and do the same thing. The other thing is, is this person is looking for me but I have to pay the membership to find out who it is, the problem is it is a person too young to be a class member and it also says it is somebody in the US where I am in Canada. I never signed or clicked anything that said e mail people in my address book.---> Watch out for this site, it might be a scam that sends spam to people in your address book and this might have some kind of spyware or malware
Reply
9-10-2008 @ 4:32PM
Jim C said...
Please tell me you've all set au one fake email address you use only for settting up online accounts? That way spam never goes to your main account. You can usually link accounts so you can switch to and from easily. I know Hotmaiil has that option. Be sure to visit the account so it doesn't get deleted.
Reply