Internet fraud

[ddtexas]

I am not sure what to do. I was a member of a website that offered 5 cents for visiting merchant sites within their network. The money was accrued and the member could then shop within the network and request reimbursement for his purchases after the fact. I was a member of this site for quite some time. I made a purchase in June and requested a reimbursement check which was promptly issued July 1. I had accumulated a good deal of funds at this site and made a much larger purchase in August. Long story short I am now owed 431.98. I emailed customer service many times and was told that my payment would be made shortly. I have called the company and left messages for return calls with no results. I am also in contact with another member that is owed 409.27. I am sure that we are not the only ones that have outstanding payments. As recent as 11/16/00 there were Hot FAQ's on the site that encouraged people to make their purchases and request reimbursement. They stated checks would be paid on the appropriate run date. Well as of today the site is gone. The page will not even load. I did file a complaint with IFCC several weeks ago but last week received a letter from the Utah Consumer Protection Division stating that they have no jurisdiction over this matter. I reside in Texas, the company is in Utah. Do I have any recourse? I have copies of everything. I saved some of the pages to disk and printed out others. Can companies such as this just fold up and walk away? I am quite sure that they were making some money as they had many many reputable sponsors. The merchant that I purchased through was Oshman's and though they are sympathetic to my situation there is not much that they can do here. Well needless to say I am pretty frustated. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

Computer law is just now being created. In New York State, thus far, we have just two or three cases from our highest court on computer law. It unfolds daily on the New York Law Journal. There's no book yet.

Unless you can band together with enough individuals who are similarly situated like yourself, it just doesn't pay to chase $400 dollars. But, if the claims is large enough, you can all together seek a judgment or report them to the attorney general or other govt agency.

 

[ddtexas]

Thanks for the reply. I am going to put out some queries on message boards to see if I can find other members that have not been paid. How much is enough? I don't like the thought of throwing good money after bad but it is the principle of the thing. It was very time consuming to accrue the funds that I did. And I do not like the thought of being taken advantage of.

Dana

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

Dana,

First see what's out there, then consider pursuing the claims. Of course, when one Plaintiff pursues alone, within the context of a lawsuit, that Plaintiff can force the Defendant(s) to reveal other potential plaintiffs.

 

[ddtexas]

I am in the process of posting to various message boards. I have located some very recent posts from persons that are owed money and have requested that they email me privately. I guess we shall see what happens. Thanks alot!

Dana

 

[rivulus]

I too am owed money from the same company. The purchases were made in September and October and totaled a little over $158. The latter purchase was made to empty my account there when the site went from money earned per site visit to points. According to the site,checks are processed and sent at the end of the month. Thus,the reimbursement submitted in September should have been processed and mailed by the beginning of October. It was not. I inquired and was told it would be coming. Same thing happened with the October purchase - no check was processed and again promised that it would be sent. All other reimbursemsnt requests to date have been paid promptly.

Now,since 11/21,the site seems to have vanished. On another site (a lotto site),they had instituted a points sweepstakes. They were using the same site as above,but with a different name. On 11/21,access to the lotto site's points sweepstakes abruptly ceased (the lotto site was still there,though). A day or so later,the lotto site posted a notice that the points sweepstakes was cancelled as the company handling it has discontinued it.

 

[ddtexas]

On one thread of a rewards board that I visited there were 26 people who state they are owed money which totals 4692.41. Add mine to it and the few people that I have spoken with at Epinions it adds up to 5465.63. This is only from two threads on two message boards. I have emailed quite a few people that have posted regarding this and am awaiting responses. Unfortunately most of them have no valid email address listed in their profile so there is no way to get in touch. This was posted on the MyCoupons board by an "alleged" employee of Pointclick.

>As a former employee of PointClick, I would like to let >the members here know what is going on. Out of respect for >the company, I will not give out the specifics.

>As you may know, the company has been having financial >problems. It has not received the funding to proceed as a >company. The one question that everyone has is "Will I >still get my reimbursement?"

>Although I do not speak for the company, I do not expect >to receive the reimbursement that is owed to me. Just >thought you should all know. Customer support will not be >responding to any emails from now on either.

>Good Luck.

So that is the most recent info that I have on the situation. I don't have any idea how to go about pursuing this. What type of attorney handles cases such as this, Jack? And what would you recommend? Is this worth the time and trouble?

Thanks in advance,
Dana

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

For lawsuits, you need a litigator. For this type of suit, the attorney should be familiar with computer law and/or business law. If you were in New York, I could consider it.

Then there's the question of legal fees. With something like this, the best arrangement for you is contingency. An attorney might not want that because claim is relatively small and collecting will be difficult.

This is why "legal fee provisions" in contracts are so useful.

 

[ddtexas]

Thanks Jack

Yes, Texas is a bit distant from New York. I think I will make some calls on Monday and just see what I can find out. I will keep you posted on this.

Dana

 

[killi]

I have the same problem as "Dana" & "Rivulus"

Rivulus forwarded me your thread Dana. I've never used one of these thread things, so forgive me if I do it incorrectly.

I also am/was a member of this pay-per-click program and am awaiting reiumbursement also. It's not nearly the amount of money you had in, but they owe me $112.90 and I had $29.58 in my account to use before Dec.
Killi

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

Dana,

OK.

 

[ddtexas]

Just an update on the totals from the one message board where I have been checking.

Total approved 9088.00 - members awaiting checks
Total in account 2761.82 - that members were allowed to spend before 12/31/00

Just curious here - if Pointclick files bankruptcy is there any recourse? I really think that there are questionable fraudulent acts. For one they sent out an email to members a little over a week before they shut down encouraging everyone to spend the rest of the money in their account as soon as possible. Another is the email that they sent out stating that the checks would be mailed in the third week of November. To me it appears that they were buying themselves time to make as much money as they could before anyone got upset enough to take any legal action. They shut down right at the same time that everyone expected the checks to be mailed. Can a company file bankruptcy to protect themselves from fraud?

What about all the sponsors that they had? Are they continuing to pay for advertising when the site is down? They had some major sponsors - buy.com. Oshmans, Chadwicks, Onvia, ToysrUs, Zappos, the list goes on but these are not fly by night companies. I am sure that they pay their bills. Just another thought.

I am going to get on the phone is the morning and see what I can find out.

Dana

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

One thing at a time. If there's a bankruptcy filing, you'll consult a bankruptcy attorney. Try not to race ahead in your mind - it's a common thing that clients do. Just proceed logically and orderly.

First order of business: aggregate the claims and try to retain attorney to pursue the claims, either on contingency or otherwise.

You need counsel.

 

[ddtexas]

Okay, I get the picture! <g> I wish you could do it Jack. I am sure out of all of these folks there is someone from New York in the bunch.

Well, I have made several calls this morning. Most attorneys offices that I have spoken to are pretty clueless as to where to direct me. I have been given the term "Intellectual Law" twice - yes they spelled it out for so I am sure. I have never heard of such a thing. Is there a specialty for this? I am trying to reach the Bar Association here in Texas for a referral. I also sent an email to the Utah Attorney General's Office this morning. I spoke to a representative there and she stated that they need something in writing. Here is what I wrote:

My name is Dana Danchik. I reside in Cleburne, Texas.

I am writing to you in hopes that you can give me some direction regarding a Utah based company that has defrauded quite a few people over the Internet. The name of the company is Pointclick.com, Inc. The address that they are using is 629 E Quality Dr, Suite 101, American Fork, UT 84003. I will give you a brief history of the problem and perhaps you can give me some direction as to how to proceed.

Pointclick was a company that allowed people to sign up as members and visit their sponsor websites to collect 5 cents per site with a maximum of 5 dollars per day. This money was placed in the members account. The member could then shop through the merchant sites on the Pointclick network, make purchases and then request reimbursement from Pointclick by using the money in their account. Pointclick then required the member to submit proof of the purchase either by email or fax. Once Pointclick approved the purchase the amount pending would show up in the member account area and Pointclick would send a check to the member for the amount that was approved. The checks were to be issued within 2 weeks of the following month.

I personally requested a reimbursement from Pointclick in August 2000. My request was approved and my check was to be issued on the first of September. After two weeks I began to contract the company regarding the reimbursement and asking when I could expect to receive it. I received several responses from customer service apologizing for the delay in payment. They assured me that although they were behind that my payment would be made within the month. Each response promised a new target for the payment date. The last contact that I had with them stated that the payments would be issued the second or third week of November, which has now past.

As of Tuesday, November 21, 2000 the Pointclick.com site has disappeared. The sister site, Netpartner.com has also disappeared. There was no notice given to the members, no message on the site regarding when we could expect reimbursement, nothing. The company owes me $431.98 at this point. I have been frequenting a message board on the Internet where other members have been reporting how much is owed to them. The current total at that board is now getting close to $15,000.00. This total only included persons that frequent this particular message board. I am confident that this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have tried called the company several times and left a message for a return call and have not received one. All email to the company is returned as undeliverable. I did call again this morning and received an answering machine stating that the offices are closed at this time. (801) 492-9200. I left a message this morning for John Graves who is the Finance Exec.

In addition I did file a complaint with the IFCC (Internet Fraud Complaint Center). They forwarded my complaint to the State of Utah Dept of Commerce Division of Consumer Protection. I did receive a response from Investigator, Adam Bryan Olson stating that this appears to be a civil matter and that they have no jurisdiction. He suggested that the matter be handled in small claims court. However it appears that this is much larger than I originally thought and I don’t think that this is a matter for small claims. I really believe that there has been fraud committed. The company encouraged members to spend the money in their account before December 31 in a bulk mail that was sent to all members just prior to the disappearance of the site. In addition the company had really reputable sponsors that have a huge presence, some both on and off of the web. These sponsors included Oshmans, Toys R Us, buy.com, Chadwicks of Boston, Onvia.com, Omaha Steaks, Disney.com, Priceline.com and Netgrocer just to name a few. I find it hard to believe that these companies were not honoring their agreement to pay Pointclick.

What recourse do we have with this company? I am not quite sure in which direction to go as the company is so far away from here. All of the members have acted in good faith, abiding by the companies terms of service that was posted on the site. We expect the company to honor their commitment as well.

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I have a good deal of documentation to support all of the above information. I will be happy to provide anything that is necessary.

Respectfully,
Dana Danchik

 

[Jack Mevorach, Esq.]

If you have a NY Plaintiff or Defendant, please let me know. Thank you for considering me.