Surely you know who the Video Professor is. He’s the “guy” (it’s actually a company named after the guy whom we all know and love) who tells you, late at night when you should either be sleeping or several drinks past the legal limit, that it’s OK if you don’t know how to use a computer. Take this woman here: she’s so dumb her 3-year-old knows more about computers than she does! Yeah, that guy. Anyhow, if you’ve ever said anything negative about the company or its wares be sure to check your inboxes—the company has filed 100 lawsuits against anonymous critics. How it must suck if your real name is John Doe…
Video Professor is using common tactics to ruin people’s lives—claims of trademarks infringement and disparagement. The actual complaint is laden with legalese, which I’m in no way capable of deciphering.
To Video Professor: I’ve never used your product, so I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I do think you should update your infomercial, however—it’s getting harder and harder to believe that an adult can be outsmarted by a 3-year-old in 2007. Maybe in 1996 when computers were still exclusively the domain of dudes playing Quake, but I don’t see how you can be a functional adult nowadays without being able to send an e-mail.
Video Professor sues anonymous griping posters, demands their identities [Consumer Law and Policy Blog via Slashdot
Original Complaint PDFFFF
The man is a shyster. He sends you a FREE CD this is true, but what he doesn’t tell you is he includes a second CD which you weren’t planning on getting in the first place.
If you don’t return the second CD quickly you will be charged $80.00. About once a month thereafter you will receive another CD in the mail which you have to return or else you will be billed $80..
Oh man! John at HP just got CrunchGear an invitation to a Colorado courthouse.
Shhhh.
I wonder which post got the VP all hot and bothered. Somebody must have said something about the VP’s mother.
My guess is that the VP came into work one morning, stormed into his lawyer’s office, threw down a stack of print outs from the message board and demanded that his lawyers do something…anything.
The six claims in the pleading are pretty lame- a fishing expedition, if you will. By contrast, the response of one of the hosting companies to the subpoenas may have the VP’s lawyers stopped in their tracks…for a while anyways.
http://www.citizen.org/documents/videoprofletter.pdf
BTW: Am I the only one old enough to remember Time/Life and Columbia House subscriptions? Twenty CD’s for a penny and then you only have to buy ten more at regular prices? Except you were never able to cancel the damn thing and you spent about ten years rushing the newly arrived CD back to the post office so you wouldn’t get charged?
Well, they are now guaranteed that I’ll never buy a product from them.
This is the same scam Columbia House hit folks with back when CDs outsold MP3s.
Order for free today, deal with a collection agent tomorrow…