Five Parents, whose respective children were duped into a subscription by Jamster’s deceptive advertising filed suit against Jamster, Verisign; and mobile phone providers T-Mobile, Cingular and AT&T. The lawsuit alleges, among other things, deceptive advertising and unfair competition by contracting with minors. The suit requests that Jamster be stopped from running advertisements that do not make it clear that by signing up for a free ringtone, consumers would be charged for a monthly subscription fee, that would show up on their monthly mobile phone bill.

Since being sued, Jamster, Verisign and the cell phone providers (“Defendants”) have fought at every turn to keep their customers from having their day in Court. First, the Defendants filed motions claiming that their customers had given up all rights to sue in a court of law and all rights to participate in a class action suit just because they had signed up for mobile phone service and, therefore, agreed to the terms of service that were contained in the mobile phone packaging.

When Plaintiffs opposed these motions and won, the Defendants next filed an appeal, which is now in the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. We have filed our briefs for the appeal, and are waiting to be notified of the date of the appeals hearing, which could be six months or more down the road. We intend to fight the Defendants continued efforts to prevent consumers from suing for the money they lost.

After filing the class action suit, Callahan, McCune & Willis, APLC, has been contacted by dozens of consumers, nationwide and in England and Germany, who also lost money when Jamster signed them up for an unwanted subscription. If you, or someone you know, lost money to Jamster, or any of the other Defendants, we’d like to hear about it. Please fill out the “We want your input” portion of this webpage and someone will contact you.

After filing the initial Complaint against Jamster and the additional Defendants, Callahan, McCune & Willis, APLC, was contacted by numerous people alleging that their children had fallen prey to Jamster’s false advertising practices in the same manner as Plaintiff Charles Ford. Therefore, an amended Complaint was filed, naming an additional four individuals as Plaintiffs and expanding the allegations to include, among other things, unfair competition by contracting with minors.

Although the case was originally filed in State Court, it was removed to Federal Court and has been reassigned to Judge Jeffrey T. Miller. In response to Plaintiffs’ first Complaint, T-Mobile, Cingular, and AT&T, filed Motions, which are legal documents requesting the court make a ruling on a particular legal argument, claiming that their customers gave up all rights to sue in a court of law and all rights to participate in a class action suit just by agreeing to mobile phone service. They, therefore, requested that the Judge order that the cases be handled on an individual basis via arbitration. Jamster and VeriSign also claimed that they were entitled to benefit from the alleged arbitration agreements. By filing the First Amended Complaint, Defendants’ motions no longer applied. We anticipate, however, that the same Motions will be filed by Defendants in response to Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint.

Should this occur, Callahan, McCune & Willis, APLC, will be filing briefs in Opposition to these Motions. The Defendants have until September 16, 2005, in which to respond to Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint.

The complaint was filed in San Diego Superior Court and was removed to United States District Court for the Southern District of California, and has been assigned to Judge James F. Stiven. The complaint and summons have been served on the defendants, and their responses are due within a month.