File that one under dumbass.

It is about time! Don't a lot of dating sites do this as well. A person signs up for the "free membership" and they get sent fake contacts to make them pay for the "gold" or whatever membership only to find that no one is contacting them?

To be honest, I never really believed those ads, especially since I don't have a profile on CM.com. And how could they know that someone was looking for me if I don't exist on the site? Reminds me of those flash/audio ads that tell me over my speakers that I've won a NinWii...

Classmates missed their opportunity. They were one of the first social networking sites on the scene. Instead they blew it and made you pay for any feature that would make being a member worthwhile.

@apronk: Agreed, it's their own dumb fault they botched was a pretty revolutionary idea at the time as we've seen now with MySpace and facebook's success. Classmates deserves and financial woes that come their way.

As much as I think that guy is a moron and survival of the fittest should apply online as well, that site does strike me as the same type of scumbag company that would make adware so I hope they lose.

Damn, now there was a case worth suing over. I too fell into depression after I found out my mongoloid classmates in high school didn't give a rats ass about where I was 13 years later :(

Just kidding... anyone I really cared about in high school eventually found me on Facebook or MySpace over the past 4 years.

This story brightened my dark, gloomy day.

Who would be eligible for that class? Anyone who's graduated high school in the last 40 years?

"Classmates class of '09" has a nice ring to it.

@TemporaryError: i've never believed them either, or taken the time to even click on one of their ads...but i'm glad to see someone's finally taking action against them if only because i find the ads annoying.

I have a classmates.com profile like a lot of people and I really never liked the site. We were coming up on my 10 year reunion and I got a message that said that I had comments on my profile but to see them I would have to pay $XX.XX to join. I paid and the "comments" on my profile were just footprints from people reading my profile. The assholes will never see another dime from me.

@floyderdc: yep there is one fairly popular one that does this, though I cant remember the name of the top of my head.

Of course anyone over the age of 15 in America should know false advertising this obvious when he sees it. That being said, it IS false advertising, and I am staunchly in favor of any action taken to curb it.

Ooo! I hope they get sued out of existence! This is one grave I have no problem dancing on.

Classmates dot com did that add-on of WLI*Reservations at $10 a month on the credit card of my friend, an incredibly sweet not-very-computer-savvy older gentleman. Luckily for him he reads his credit card statements.

This story is being overblown. I've never gotten anything from Classmates that says any specific person is looking for you, just that people have visited your profile and left messages. They never say that the people are old classmates that I have seen. This court case doesn't have a leg to stand on. You KNOW Classmates would never word their messages in a way that would open them to a lawsuit. They have many more lawyers that are smarter than us to CYA on this wording. Sure, Classmates is nothing but an ad bomb these days. But that's not illegal.

Good. I hope someone goes after www.match.com next and their bogus 6 months free BS.

@Trencher93: Well, there's at least one class-action lawyer who thinks he's smarter than us AND classmates.com's lawyers. We'll see what happens.

Something new HAS been going on with this site. I did not sign up for gold. Recently I have been barraged with emails stating that there are people who have left messages for me or have left their name. Seems like a new person or two shows up every week, and I get a new "notification" email. For this unbelievable popularity to have just cropped up all of a sudden is beyond suspicious. Anyone who pays them will find what the previous writers have said: false names or unknown people "viewing" the profile. Stay away from Classmates. They are predatory false advertisers. I hope the class-action suit works, but I fear they will only have to agree to some cheap and noninjurious remedy that helps nothing.

@Trencher93: Someone work for Classmates.com? I have also seen these spam e-mails saying one of your classmates is looking for you. Though I just hit Junk. I'm in contact with 90% of my class through social networking sites. Classmates.com is useless these days.

@Trencher93: Really? I get "your old classmates are looking for you" emails from Classmates *all the time*. There are separate emails that say "see who's viewed your profile", which suggests that the other one means people are leaving messages, or have in some way indicated that they want to communicate with you.

I assumed it was people just wandering through, but occasionally considered ponying up the money to find out who.

Personally, I think that if you have created a profile and classmates then sends you an email saying that other users are looking *for you*, then it should in fact mean they are trying to find you... Not that someone viewed your profile and went "nah, not her."

@Maulleigh: Oh, now THAT one just makes me laugh.

"Is our service so pathetic that in 6 months we can't get you a decent date? No worries - you can suffer through another 6 months of our pathetic service for FREE!"

These people are annoying SPAM meisters. It seems that almost everyday I get email from them saying that new people signed up, my classmates want to see me, people looked at my profile, new photos, new updates, etc.

Like a child at a grocery store screaming for his mommy to buy him candy for an hour straight, they will do anything to get you to spend a dime.

I actually paid for it once, and while I didn't find any classmates I did find old Navy buddies that I lost contact with. So for the money I paid, way back in the day, it was worth it. I wouldn't pay for it again. Especially with things like Facebook and Myspace that are free.

Quick! Someone email the Nigerian scam to this guy!

@apronk: Absolutely! Well said!

@Tmoney02: Heartdetectives.com

What is the point of Classmates.com when Facebook and Myspace let you search by highschool and graduation year anyway?

Classmates.com has somehow survived the dotcom burst. Cockroaches!

@Maulleigh: match.com IS being sued based on their 6 months free after 6 months thing. Or at least was being sued, I think they were attempting to settle out of court to keep it hush hush. Not sure if that happened.

I have a fake profile on Classmates, just so I can look around. I'm registered with an extremely fake name like Johanestoonan VanBildenbergersmithen to a highschool I never attended and I still get span saying "Find out who has signed your guestbook Johanestoonan" and "Johanestoonan, Your classmates are looking for you!" That's how I know it's B.S., nobody in the history of the world has ever searched for Johanestoonan VanBildenbergersithen let alone signed his guestbook.

I've never used them. I find their pop-ups annoying enough that it turned me off to ever signing up, so I guess that saved me.

People seem to have no trouble finding me. Probably because I have an unusual last name, and have lived in the same city since 2000, and the same house since 2002. Plus there really isn't anyone from my class that I care to talk to, barring a couple of buddies, one of which (are you ready for this?) recently SENT ME A LETTER!!!!

It's been a looooonnngg time since I got a letter!

@apronk: You are so right. I remember when Classmates first came out. I thought that everyone would be signing up for that. How neat would it be to be able to keep in touch with all your friends in one place and not worry about changed emails address, etc. They were so close, now people would be better off just to create a facebook group.

Good for him. Classmates.com offers no service of any value. It sucks up bandwidth on the internet, and it tries to bilk people out of money. The sooner it dies the death it deserves the better off we will all be.

Classmates.com deserves to die. Please kill it.

@TemporaryError: I'd imagine he's suing less over those ads, and more over the "So-and-so many people have viewed your profile- pay us money to find out who!" e-mails they send out.

@HogwartsAlum: Letter? Like with paper? Do people still do that?

Oh, wait, I see- musta been by owl.

Oh come on Ben! Anyone who has any sense would not believe those ads in the first place. I guess we waited 13 years for someone both dumb enough to buy into their ads and had the wherewithall to actually sue...

@testsicles: Wait, you pay to have a fake profile to prove to yourself that no one is looking for you?

I'm surprised they're still around. Don't we use Facebook for this now?

Classmates.com = dinosaur. Who needs them when you have Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, etc.?

Me too with the fake name account. Amazing all these buddies that are dying to connect with me again after all these years. I think they deserve some bad publicity even if the lawsuit has no merit.

@Tightlines: You don't need to pay to set up a profile. You pay in order to read messages, view comments, or see who has visited your profile.

@Tightlines: I don't pay, I just have a fake profile to see whatever you see with a fake profile that you wouldn't see without logging in. Not much difference. But I still get the emails, that was my point.

@floyderdc: No kidding. I would be so thrilled if this scuzbag company went straight out of business.

I have a Classmates profile. I got a paid account right around the time of my 10-year class reunion and found some people through there. I did let the paid account lapse though - like others have said, why should I pony up when I can find people on Facebook and Myspace for free? Not to mention that earlier this year a guy from my high school set up a site on Ning for anyone who grew up and/or went to school in my hometown. It's got the message boards and groups and things, is much more active than Classmates, and it's free. : )

Normally I don't support ridiculous lawsuits, but this Web site deserves to be sued to extinction. I can't believe a pre-Web 2.0 dinosaur that advertises with spam and popups is still roaming the Web.

@CFinWV:

Which is the garbage part, at the very least, they should show WHO the message is from (if there is a message), and not just that there is a message.

IE, why would I sign up to read a message from someone I don't want to talk to?

/besides, anyone that could find me on classmates.com, can find my profile elsewhere on the net

I get emails from CM all the time saying someone was looking at my profile. However since I put my email address in my profile hidden from the CM scanners and have not received an email, I doubt seriously that anyone really wants to contact me.

@rpm773:

Oh yes it is rpm773, I've been waiting for this type of action for a long time. I got less than stellar service,honesty when Juno ISP was supposed to give me a free month trial, but yet charged me right after I signed up. Classmates are a division of United Online.

This is total nonsense. What a waste of human effort. I begrudge this man and all the lawyers involved the food they eat.

This is also going to cost the taxpayers money by tying up the judicial system.

This man and his lawyers should think of something productive to do instead of this B.S.

@copious28: I think it's one thing when one of us tech-savy people fall for this. Yeah, you're an idiot.

But when it's someone who is still naive and believes that the internet is full of wonderful people, then I have some sympothy.

I've received these e-mails from Classmates.com before. I've always ignored them since I have facebook.