Vermont Electric Power Co. (VELCO) gets slapped with a class-action lawsuit by two local lawyers who argue that the company has misrepresented the scope of its condemnation authority in getting land for transmission lines that will also carry fiber optic wires.
The complaint, filed in Addison County Superior Court by lawyers Peter Langrock and James Dumont on behalf of as many as 1,000 Vermont landowners, demands that VELCO must be stopped from further construction, installation, and leasing of fiber optic lines along its electrical transmission rights-of-way across plaintiff’s land. It also asks the company to remove any lines that are not directly needed for the transmission of electricity.
Oprah is well loved -- with loyal subscriptions to the TV host’s eponymous O Magazine as an attestation. But something got in the way and now complaints are desperately arranged. Raise that to a lawsuit to merit O’s attention.
Allegedly, O Magazine and Hearst Magazine subscribers often receive letters informing them their subscription payments are past due. The notices come with threats that unpaid accounts will affect credit standings. "I was double billed," claims one disgruntled subscriber.
The lawsuit argues that the publisher is allegedly employing a nationwide scam to trick, deceive and scare subscribers into paying money they do not owe, when in fact subscriptions are already paid for in full.
In 2003, a consumer class action lawsuit accuses AOL of regularly and deliberately double-billing hundreds of thousands of customers through a deceptive scheme involving multiple screen names by creating what it refers to as "spin-off sub accounts."
The suit explains the 'deceptive' tactic in that the spin-off accounts are created for subscribers who maintain multiple screen names intended to deter customers from finding out they are being billed for two separate accounts.
Allegedly, AOL charges subscribers' credit cards at the beginning of the month for one subscription fee and will then post a second subscription fee towards the end of the month.