The Federal Trade Commission has sued GoInternet.net and its principle officer with contempt of court, after the company allegedly continued billing for Internet-related services without customer authorization despite a previous FTC order.
The FTC and GoInternet.net, known also as Mercury Marketing, had actually settled an earlier complaint in March 2001, with the company agreeing then to stop misleading consumers and reveal all transaction terms prior to billing. But the commission now charges the company and its principal officer, Neal Saferstein, continued the practices, and asked a federal court for a temporary order stopping them and freezing the company assets for future consumer redress.
"In numerous instances, consumers who are billed for the defendants' Internet-related services do not remember receiving the defendants' telephone calls," the original June 2000 complaint said. "In other instances, the defendants allegedly billed consumers who said they declined to buy the services or agreed only to receive additional free information."
The commission said Mercury and Saferstein never asked for credit card or other payment information but subsequently charged their would-be victims on their telephone bills.
But Mercury and Saferstein now "have engaged in precisely the same deceptive and misleading practices that led to the FTC's original action – billing consumers for their Web services without the consumer's authorization," the FTC's new complaint charges. The commission said they reviewed company business records, interviewed consumers and third parties, and surveyed Mercury customers to monitor compliance.
The company's conduct "has not only continued, it has worsened," the new complaint said, noting the company also uses the names Mercury Internet Services, Mercury Communcations, Mercury Internet Services Wireless, Venus Voice Mail (targeting residential telephone customers), and Mercury
