Porn Sites Duped Consumers, FTC Charges

Aug. 24 -- Owners of scores of adult Web sites have been charged with billing thousands of Web users for supposedly free services, and billing other consumers who have never visited the Web sites at all, the Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday.

Both the FTC and the New York attorney general’s office filedsuit in U.S. District Court seeking to halt the billing practicesand have asked the court to freeze the defendants’ assets in orderto reimburse consumers.

Crescent Publishing Group, Inc., based in New York City, and itsowner, Bruce Chew, as well as David Bernstein are named asdefendants in the complaint, along with 64 affiliated corporationsthat operate the adult Web sites, which include Playboy.com andHighsociety.com.

Not-So-Free Tours

According to the complaint, the “Free Tours” generated incomeof $188 million between 1997 and 1999 — $141 million of which wasgenerated in the first 10 months of 1999 alone.

The FTC said the defendants operate the Web sites and promotethem as free, saying that consumers’ credit card numbers arerequired solely to prove that the visitors are of legal age to viewthe material — a common practice on adult Web sites. The sites saythat the credit cards will not be billed, but thousands ofcustomers were charged monthly membership fees from $20 to $90, theFTC said.

“I never saw any terms or conditions regarding how to become apaying member of the site,” one consumer stated to the commissionin the complaint brief. “During my time on the Web site, I neverthought that the free tour had ended or that my credit card wouldbe billed for visiting the site.”

The complaint says that while consumers enter their credit cardinformation, they view adult pictures in the margins of the page.Once the consumer presses a “Continue” button at the bottom ofthe page, the card is billed, although no Web page says the tourhas ended or that their cards will be billed.