America Online agreed yesterday to pay customers as much as $25 million to settle claims that it wrongly billed them for some online services and products.
AOL, part of Time Warner, charged customers for services and products like the AOL Desk Planner without consumers' consent, plaintiffs in several lawsuits claimed. The plaintiffs also said AOL billed customers for accounts after they tried to cancel them.
"AOL strenuously denies the plaintiffs' allegations," the settlement administrator, the Garden City Group in Melville, N.Y., said yesterday in a statement. "AOL is settling this action simply to avoid the burden and expense of litigation."
A court hearing will be held on the settlement Feb. 22.
An AOL spokesman, Nicholas Graham, said in an e-mailed statement that the settlement "consolidates and resolves a series of cases that have been pending for several years."
Besides cash compensation, AOL will provide account credit, forgive unauthorized charges and donate services to charity, the statement said. AOL will pay as much as $8 million in fees to the customers' lawyers, the agreement says.
Cash compensation for individuals will depend on whether the customer previously complained to AOL and can provide documentation of the billing. The amount paid on each claim may depend on the number and amount of valid claims received, the settlement said.
The customers must complete a two-page claim form following four pages of instructions, return any merchandise they did not order and submit supporting documentation within 60 days of court approval of the settlement.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
| 
