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Video Professor Sues 100 Anonymous Critics
Techdirt is reporting that the Video Professor Company is suing 100 anonymous critics of their company. The Video Professor is known for their television ads hawking DVDs that teach you various skills like how to use your computer. Most of the complaints center around how their "free" product offering automagically signs you up for a subscription. Instead of addressing the concerns the Video Professor has decided to take the litigious route.
Anything to distract them from producing more of those really annoying TV ads! Hopefully the lawyers will suck up their entire marketing budget for the next few years!
got his or her legal education from a series of DVDs.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
One guy, from this link in TFA, says that he tried to order the Quickbooks tutorial from the Video Professor. The website gave a confirmation page that listed some product other than what he ordered. Then, they start sending me other tutorials, but he never requested those. On top of it, he tries to order the Quickbooks tutorial again a couple months later, but this time he calls them. They tell him he already ordered that one, but offer to send him is order for free, since it was supposed to arrive back in March. In the end, he never got the product he actually ordered.
Doesn't sound like a company I'd do business with. Ever.
My blog
November's DVD of the month is "how to create your own legal pleadings" with Video Professor's MS-Office accessories training 'product' ?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
My, uh, "friend" has this problem, see. What should I^H he do about it?
Judge: "So who are you suing exactly?"
Video Professor: "Anonymous."
Judge: "Uh, clerk, who exactly is 'Anonymous?'"
Clerk: "Well Your Honor, I read slashdot and the only 'Anonymous' I know are cowards."
Video Professor: "They certainly are!"
Judge: "Would 'Anonymous' please stand and be recognized by the court."
One soul stands...
Clerk: "Please sit down CowboyNeal."
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
For online lessons, the same lessons are provided to the customer through streaming media. These lessons are billed on a per-month basis; access to all lessons is available for a monthly subscription fee of approximately $30.
The company has been criticized[6] for its CD-ROM sales and advertising practice. Some complaints center on an alleged lack of clarity regarding the nature of the continuity sales model and the "free" CD-ROM, and in perceived difficulty in contacting the company for refunds. Others are based on the lack of choice the customer has in subsequent offerings. The company says that such complaints are rare, and promptly resolved. As of September 2007, the company has a "Satisfactory" rating by the Better Business Bureau. Reading between the lines here, you can see how badly such a system can be abused. The online accounts I read about their business practices marked them as quite worrisome.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
...Video Professor isn't available in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I mean really, what's up with that?
Not sure how the ramblings of us yahoos interferes with that. Sorry, but I always get a little miffed when it is implied that a discussion online (or elsewhere) is somehow obligated to grant the same rights as the court, or somehow is interefering with the court.
Also, you might want to check on the meaning of the word litigious before getting mad at how other people are using it.
There's no fraud here. This is just like the book clubs, the CD clubs, and the movie clubs. Pay a penny, get 6 free books, and every month, unless you say otherwise, you buy two more. This business model has been around for ages.
If there are suckers who don't bother to read the print and take the steps necessary to opt out, and they go around telling people that the company is engaged in fraud when they aren't, those people should be sued. It's libel to make false statements like that, and there really isn't anything else that can be done to put a stop to it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Let me guess, are you a lawyer?
The problem (as you must be aware) is that too many companies are using the law as their weapon,
to litigate legitimate opponents into bankruptcy and use legal actions to cover their own
shortcomings.
I have some unfortunate opportunities to observe such actions myself as some people I know were
intimidated by a real estate management company, which managed to extort a significant amount of money from them, threatening legal action. In all likelihood the claims would have been dismissed by a court, but they were too scared.
That's why I also never complain about war, crime, poverty, disease, or dictatorships. If it's old, it must be good!
Advice: on VPS providers
Looks like they get your credit card number when you sign up, promising not to charge you for the "free" service or something, and then later charge you because you forgot to cancel their subscription.
Several credit cards now let you generate disposable credit card numbers on the fly --just go to the web site and you can have a new credit card number with your specified credit limit and date of expiry. I'd like to see how they handle that! Maybe they'll send a message: "Dear Sir, your credit card number is no longer valid and we were unable to pull that scam on you. Please go to the following web page and enter your new credit card info, so that we can scam you."
In fact, something similar happened to me. Near the end of the tax year, I decided to make a donation to a charity, and figured out how much would be best given my tax situation. I donated through a web site using a disposable credit card. Somehow, they ended up charging only about 40% of the amount I said I would donate.
Fast forward to three months later, well into the new tax year, I get a phone call from the charity saying that my credit card wasn't working. I said,
"What are you talking about? You're not supposed to be charging my credit card."
"Yeah, we are --you made a donation."
"But that was last year! You charged it already!"
"But we didn't charge enough."
"So you tried to just charge more now and have some bill randomly show up on my credit card bill? If you want the rest of the donation, send me a receipt backdating the donation to the previous tax year."
"I'm sorry, we're not allowed to backdate receipts."
"Well, then, too bad. I offered my money and you screwed up. Next time charge the correct amount. And don't make unannounced corrections to your mistake a few months after I've reconciled my finances."
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
the problem is VP ads trumpet the "free cd" thing and do not mention that you will be paying for a subscription for X cds in this case the "fine print" is written on a stone tablet in the middle of the african jungle in an obscure dialect of sanscrit. (you ltierally only get the details after you have your "free disc")
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I would have thought that the issues raised by this are a lot more important (especially given that he has shut down blogs belonging to MP's, a candidate for Mayor of London etc.), but Slashdot is too US centric to care about what happens across the Atlantic (even though you can be sued for libel in the UK, if just one person in Britain views your website based anywhere in the world - so slashdot better not libel me!).
I've read all the fine print on the CD order page and the User Agreement page and if some of the complaints linked to are true then it isn't just a case of not reading the fine print.
Some of the complaints are the inability to cancel the subscription. Being billed a few days after the trial and not getting a refund once they sent the discs back in. If you read the fine print on the CD oder page you have 10 days and only have to send in one disc to get the money back. The problem is they don't specify 10 days from order or receipt. This is important if it's sent via the postal service. I have had packages take 12 days to come in via that method. It also doesn't mention on that page that you will be subscribed to subsequent versions.
When I was younger I used the Columbia music club. They clearly stated the terms and conditions and I had no problem meeting them. I always had the option to write "refused, return to sender" if I forgot to tell them not to send me the current months CD picks. If I remember all I had to do was buy 6 CDs at regular price.
So no, this is not like the CD and book clubs because the terms they are holding people to are: not spelled completely disclosed. they aren't completely honoring the ones they do, and they aren't giving people the same time frame to return subscription shipments(Columbia was 30 days unopened.)
The Video Professor ought not to worry about his reputation. People who need his videos don't know how to get on the Internet to read the reviews in the first place.
On his front page, he has a link on how to learn the Internet (2004!) for the people who are so confused that they actually used the Internet to find out how to learn the Internet. Of course he's prepared to show you the Internet of three years ago because the new, modern Internet might be too much for his clientèle to handle (sarcasm intended).
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
oh...so THAT'S where that damned BOWFLEX came from!
Yes, true, but the point is that his advertisements are deliberately deceptive or misleading and his business model is supported entirely upon the backs of those you mention. I've seen his ads and not one of them even suggests that you will receive merchandise you don't ask for and will be billed for them. Most honest and intelligent people, when faced with the absolute truth of the subscription model, would not choose his services. If he believed otherwise, he would not put the truth in tiny print.
This is the epitome of a scam business. If you cannot tell potential customers the truth about what your product is and how it's delivered, and still expect that they will say "yes", then your business does not deserve to survive in the free market.
Many businesses thrive on a customer base that is uninformed about the actual state of their product or the method used to sell the product. Were it not so, then sweepstakes would not lead in their sales pitch with tiny print that says "if you have and return the winning number" followed by huge text that says YOU HAVE WON TWENTY BAZILLION DOLLARS!!!!!
Anyway, if he WAS an honest and legitimate business worth spending money with, he would attempt to remedy the problems of the past instead of litigating with SLAPP lawsuits to prevent people from criticizing his company. Obviously he has no concept of free speech, and doesn't realize he'll get his ass handed to him for filing a SLAPP.
Maybe his product works. Maybe it's real videos that help, maybe they're retarded- I don't know. However, logic tells me that when a dissatisfied customer is sued by the business in order to silence them, it is not a business I would allow to have my money.