Slashdot Mirror
California Man Sues Penis-Enlargment Firms
Ronin writes "The DenverPost reports that 'A California man on Thursday sued a slew of international companies, including a Greeley distributor, alleging the penis-enlargement products they market and distribute do not work.' One of the highlights of the article is when the man says "I was wondering for a long time why no one has gotten around to suing these penis-enlargement guys, because it seems like a pretty blatant ... fraud." Probably cause people are too embarrased to say they've tried it."
Perhaps this will convince those spammers, that not everybody is stupid enough to buy their snake-oil. If they keep losing money from lawsuits, maybe they'll just crawl back in their holes and rot.
Hey! come on! try dividing it by anything!
Perhaps one of the reasons is because many times it's hard to track down the guys actually this shit? If most of the time people can't even catch the spammers themselves, how can a simple guy who wants to make his penis grow find someone who's probably went to great lengths to mask their identity?
As silly as it sounds, if some people who've been duped could get a class action lawsuit going, they could simultaneously go after spammers.
... this hasn't been done before. More specifically, I wonder why a woman hasn't already devised a class action sexual harassment suit built around penis enlargement or viagra spam.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
If we allwent out, suing and legally harassing these sam firms at each and every opportunity, we'd get somewhere. I have made it my personal goal to chase the bastards down on each opportuinty I get. Where I live, spam is in effect illegal and I have gotten four (4) spams from Norwegian companies since my main email address went up some six years ago. All of them were reported to the state consumer ombudsman (what you don't have one?) Three of them have resulted in reprimandes and none of them repeated the offence.
Get down from you high horses and start the hand to hand combat!
The field of anthropology facinates me... In one of the texts that I read, I found mention to the Topinama tribe of Brazil. These people lived as they were until the 16th century, and had a very interesting practice. The men would have a local venomous snake bite their penises, and after six months of mind-altering agony, their shlongs had become very long. Now, what I want to know is how this happened (and what type of snake was used)?
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
From the article:
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, seeks class-action status to represent an estimated 1 million people who ordered the products in response to advertisements on television, radio and spam e-mail.
I'd like to know how they arrived at this estimate of 1 million customers. How are the damages (after the lawyers' fee) to be distributed? Equally among all these people? How did the plaintiff learn their identities?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
This was a shiny dollar bill on the ground waiting to be picked up, and it didn't occur to anybody to do it. I mean, the claims being made are pretty blatantly falsifiable. Take someone's money and make their penis longer? How hard is it really to verify to the satisfaction of a court that these claims are fraudulent? This is blatant fraud, relying on the fact that nobody wants to file a suit on behalf of guys with small penises who respond to spam. This guy obviously doesn't care what anyone thinks of him and I can really respect that.
I have a question for all you Slashdot lawyers, who are always good for some creative interpretation of the law. Is it possible for me to form and sue on behalf of a class, and name another class as the defendant? Specifically, I would like to sue on behalf of everyone who has received a penis-enlargement spam and did not respond to it, and I would seek damages against the class of individuals who received this spam and did respond to it. And I would specifically like to include in my definition of this latter class those individuals who seek relief in this case, so that I can place a lien on any judgments squeezed out of Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy for failing to lengthen the members of this class as promised. Part of that money is required to cover my email deletion charges.
Not that I've tried them, however, I was taking zinc supplements among other things for body building. Zinc is a precursor to testosterone, and when you take zinc supplements, it increases your production of it. One of the things I noticed, and my girlfriend noticed, that it seemed bigger. It doesn't actually increase the size of it persay, but the added testosterone in your body makes you have much firmer erections. Like, we're talking rock hard, morning wood type erections, any time of the day.
Penis enlargement pills are mostly zinc compounds. When you stop taking the zinc supplements, the effect will be gone also.
But, "add 2 inches in 30 days"??!?! Maybe if your erections are not that hard to begin with. Sometimes when I'm not that hard, but still enough to have sex, it's still around 6". But when I get really hard, it's more like 7.5-8. I'm not exaggerating, I'm posing anonymously so I have nothing to prove here. But even at 7.5-8 inches, if there was a pill that would magically add a couple of inches, I'd buy it. So it's not just guys w/ small penises buying this stuff, it's all guys. Guys have a fascination with having a huge dick.
This guy tried a penis enlargement pill and blogged about it. Take a look at his conclusion.
I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.
Was that an actual part of a spam? I ask, because normally I don't get them, but I was going through our email abuse box at work and came across one that said:
Five situations Chum should try.
1. "Doggiestyle? Right, here I come.. and still I come, no, it's not a dildo, it's still me!"
2. "You like this, baby? What? I cut my dick off and now I've got a huge dead man's cock dangling here? NO WAY!"
3. "You don't tell me you've just called off this threesome 'cuz my dick is small, HOW ABOUT THESE EXTRA INCHES, BITCH?"
4. "Are you sure your uvula doesn't like my extra inch cockslaps?"
5. "Gotta change my whole boxer wardrobe 'cuz my cock always dangles out. Three extra inches.. fuck Natural Gain Plus!"
I mean, seriously. Especially number 2. Are spammers really getting that desperate, and more importantly does it actually make people buy these alleged products?
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Psychic hotlines been doing that for years.
OTOH, I've heard those penis pumps (with prolonged use) actually do make your penis slightly larger, but that they also turn it into a big numb sausage hardly fit for peeing out of, never mind sex.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
There was something several years ago about a company with a money back offer if you weren't pleased with their porn / product (I forget which) and they issued a check from something like "Anal Rape and Masturbation company" and they made a bunch of money because everyone was too embarassed to cash the check. I think it might have even been on Slashdot.
..norwegian spammers aren't all too bright either, or well depending on how you look at it. Every Norwegian spam (or at least every one in Norwegian, 2-3 or so) has been directly from Norwegian servers with a clear and tracable path.
The day I start getting SPAM in Norwegian "from" China, is the day I worry. Then the advertised firm will claim innocents and outsourcing it to a third party in a foreign country, I'm not so sure how effective the anti-spam laws will be. Time will tell....
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, I'm pretty sure you sue where you're more likely to win...given things like the judges, that state's laws against such things, the courts track record, etc...Colorado is a very conservative and religious state, maybe they think that will be an advantage over a liberal state like california- maybe they think the CO judge will cringe at the very word "penis" - of course i'm just speculating here ;)
...and keep in mind that this is about as unofficial a statistic as you can get, given that it was given as the "out-of-the-blue questionaire" for an underground newspaper (readme) at Carnegie Mellon University. The sample size is probably quite small as well.
Anyway, the questionaire showed that, at least in terms of conscious sexual appeal, a pretty large proportion of women interviewed on campus found large penis girth to be significantly more highly valued than long penis length.
This matches up with the claim here. I suppose there's probably someone that's done serious studies in this field, given the marketing power of sex.
May we never see th
do a quick google of california's problems. you'll see that we have strict environmental laws, expensive worker's comp, outrageous business regulations, and an out of control, lawsuit happy culture. we've had tax-and-spend liberals running the state and running it into the ground. and for all you IT people out of work, is it any wonder silicon valley took a dump, being in califonia. i have lived in calif. all my life. we have lost over a million jobs since 1998, while almost the same number of illegals, etc. have entered the public dole. it is an unbearable business climate. those who can get out are. i don't blame them. and cut them some slack. they are shell-shocked.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
There have been countless studies, and countless varying results. The general average is purported to be 6", and that depends upon accurate measurements (i.e. not from your rectum and up and over and back down again). Most studies are optional studies (i.e. they can't randomly stop guys on the street and measure their dicks), so naturally it's going to edge towards the upper end: Who's more likely to submit to a cock measurement -- A guy with a tiny dick, or a well endowed braggart?
Yes width is important, as is length.
The most important thing is the stroke itself. The longer the stroke the more pleasure a woman would get from it.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
If this suit succeeds, then one of the staple items of spam content potentially disappears.
On the other hand, one million (according to the article) dumbasses are rewarded for their bad judgement. It's likely they'll continue to think there's nothing at all wrong from purchasing junk from a spammer--if not penis pills, then something else just as shady.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
A less cynical view is that some contamination is to be expected. If the levels are below some regulatory standard, there really is no issue. Newspapers tend to make these anthills seem like mountains to sell newspaper. I suppose web sites should do an analysis of the pathogens found on newspapers, and then create FUD about how these could kill you.
In another food and drug industry defense, many of these things will only kill children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Since these people are not supposed to use the product, or will die soon anyway, there again is no issue.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I used to work for NextCard Visa and one time I got a call from someone disputing a charge on their bill.
It was a pretty cryptic iBillCS.com charge or something, so I asked what it was. He said it was an e-mail for penis enlargement he got. So I asked if they billed him without his permission or got his account information somehow, but he said nope... he ordered the penis enlargement but it just didn't work.
So I sent him his dispute form.
But I put the guy immediately on hold and called everyone on my team over to look at my screen and see what this guy was disputing. Everyone had a good laugh.
So I guess some people are shameless and admit to it, anyway.
Kerney v. Fort Griffin Fandangle Ass'n, Inc., 624 F.2d 717, 721 (5th Cir. 1980) is one case that is cited, although it is somewhat limited in scope (it applies to members of unincorporated associations being certified as a class). My sense is that the expectation from the scholars might be somewhat broader than the actual case law. I seem to recall that Siegel discussed the issue in his notes to McKinney's (that's the NY annotated code for those outside the Empire State), which would lend it an air of legitimacy even in the absence of case law here in New York (although it may not have been Siegel - I last looked at this 8 years ago and my memory has been known to fade!)