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07 Nov 2001
An online porn website publisher has been forced to pay over £20m in refunds to customers that were unwittingly billed for supposedly free material.
The Crescent Publishing Group agreed to pay out the cash in a settlement with the Fedreal Trade Commission.
Customers had complained that sites such as Playgirl.com required credit card info as proof of age to access free porn, but they were later billed £60 on a monthly basis.
According to an investigation the publisher had managed to scam over £128m between 1997 and 1999.
The chief executives of the company, Bruce Chew and David Bernstein, were also banned from operating adult websites unless they post bonds amounting to £340,000.
The judge commented that the type of scam was well known about and depended on victims being too embarrassed to complain against a porn publisher.
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