Web marketer to pay $5.2 million in sales-tactics complaint

An Internet marketing firm has agreed to pay $5.2 million to settle complaints that it duped consumers into signing up for discount clubs with tough-to-notice monthly fees.

Webloyalty.com, based in Norwalk, Conn., also has agreed to give some of its customers refunds and abandon some of its past sales tactics, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.

The settlement is similar to one announced last month with another promoter of discount clubs, the Affinion Group.

Both companies had come under fire from Cuomo and other regulators over tactics critics called deceptive.

The basis for those complaints was a practice in which Internet shoppers were presented with cash-back offers on the websites of major retailers. If shoppers accepted the offers, they would be enrolled in trial periods for discount clubs offering things like cheap movie tickets in exchange for small monthly fees.

Some shoppers complained that they either never saw or misunderstood the fine print and only realized they had joined paid services after small charges began appearing on their monthly credit card bills.

Webloyalty said in a statement Tuesday that it was "making it easier for consumers to know what they are buying and how they are paying for it."

A number of online retailers that had allowed Webloyalty to piggyback on their websites also have agreed to pay a collective $3.3 million in penalties, Cuomo's office said.

The largest amount, $1.2 million, was paid by the travel reservation service Orbitz. Orbitz Worldwide has said that it had revamped the Webloyalty sign-up process as a result of the complaints. A company spokesman didn't immediately respond to a phone message and an e-mail Tuesday.- AP