$1.5 Million Settlement of True.com Class Action Lawsuit

I was emailed some documents yesterday which involves the civil action case 3:07-cv-01244-N. This is the case where Thomas Wong and others, initiated a class action lawsuit against the dating site True.com about their auto billing and renewal practices of memberships. Thomas Wong originally filed his petition on June 12, 2007.

On Friday, in the Dallas, Texas federal court a $1.5 million settlement was filed. According to document 80-2:

The Settlement Agreement requires defendant TrueBeginnings, LLC ("True") to pay $1.5 million into a settlement fund that will be used to provide refunds to certain members of the Settlement Class, and to provide free 45-day subscriptions to certain other members of the Settlement Class (thereby providing several million dollars in additional benefit to the Settlement Class). In addition, the Settlement Agreement requires entry of an injunction prohibiting True from engaging in "auto-subscription" of ex-subscribers for at least four years...

I wonder who gets the free 45 day subscriptions? I am sure they are not too happy about that since I assume they would rather get their money back. I'm glad to see True will not be able to auto subscribe ex-members for a while (why only for 4 years?). I received plenty of emails from visitors in 2007 which complained about this practice. Some of them even said that clicking on a web link in a True.com email would result in their membership being renewed without their knowledge.

This is the second major lawsuit to be settled by a dating site in the last 6 months. eHarmony settled a 3 year old allegation in November 2008 about them allegedly discriminating against gays. The result of this settlement, in part, was a new gay dating site by eHarmony called Compatible Partners.

Related Story: Back to Court for True.com