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Highbeam Research Marketing Scam Class Action Lawsuit
By Kimberly Mirando
A federal class action lawsuit claims Highbeam Research, The Gale Group and Cengage Learning charge unsuspecting consumers for memberships or subscriptions they don’t want and didn’t sign up for in a scam called “negative option marketing” using “Free-to-Pay” conversions.
“Defendants’ predatory business model utilizes a host of highly misleading, confusing, unlawful, deceptive and unfair acts or practices that deceived and are likely to deceive consumers” into unknowingly and automatically enrolling in “unauthorized yearly or monthly memberships or subscriptions in which the Defendants charge and continue to charge consumers’ credit cards without their knowledge, information or consent,” the class action lawsuit states.
This practice is known as “Free-to-Pay” conversion marketing, or automatically billing consumers for a service or membership if the consumer does not take affirmative steps to cancel during the “free trial” period.
“These marketing schemes [take] advantage of consumers’ expectations that they would have the opportunity to accept or reject the membership at the end of the ‘free trial’ period,” the Highbeam Research class action lawsuit states.
The practice of “Free-to-Pay” has led to a Senate Committee investigation after thousands of online consumer complained to state Attorneys Generals, the Better Business Bureau, and other consumer advocates of misleading and deceptive enrollment in membership plans.
The Highbeam Research class action lawsuit alleges the Defendants violated consumer protection laws by tricking consumers into signing up for a “free trial” and then charging their credit/debit cards without their knowledge after the trial period ends. It is seeking damages for Class Members in the amount of at least $25, in addition to other relief.
A copy of the Highbeam Research Marketing Scam Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.
The case is Robert Bagg, et al. v. Highbeam Research, Inc.; The Gale Group, Inc.; and Cengage Learning, Inc.
Updated August 31st, 2011
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6 thoughts onHighbeam Research Marketing Scam Class Action Lawsuit
Highbeam Research put my life in danger. How to make them to remove immediately the article which they copied from some marginal yellow press “magazine” (which is not available in the internet)? Lawsuit would be good as well. Thank you for information. Sorry that I am not able to write my name here: I hope you understand it!
margo032003@gmail.com
Same here. What is the status of the class action lawsuit?
Same with me. I have been charged a full year on a credit card I never use.
This is still happening. I took up the free trial offer and cancelled it before it expired. I have now been charged for subscription and they have not replied to my email asking that they refund the money.
The group of which it is a member, Cengage, controls online access to – among other things – The Listener. Don’t bother trying to get it. As for High Beam, they cannot even offer access the full files of the titles they claim to offer. But they do seem remarkably quick to charge for what they can’t deliver, even if they have rights to it. Cengage needs to look at itself, hard.
They have also been selling materials for which they have no rights and have paid no license fee. I have asked them to remove from their system articles from The European Journal of Law and Technology (http://jlt.org)