Ashley Madison Dangled Disgruntled Customers Over a Ledge
Ashley Madison was a website where men could sign up anonymously to cheat on their wives. It was also a scam. The site was unscrupulous at its core, which makes this CNN report that Ashley Madison customer service reps essentially blackmailed its customers surprising only for its baldfaced audacity.
Emails obtained by CNN from an anonymous ex-Ashley Madison customer show customer service reps threatening to have Ashley Madison paperwork sent to the customer’s home if he disputed a charge on his credit card. The source who reached out to CNN said that he asked for a refund after spending $40 to be able to respond to dozens of women who messaged him immediately after he registered for the site. The women never got back to him—because they were in all likelihood fake—which led to this series of garbled messages, both of which are [sic]:
From: Ashley Madison <support@ashleymadison.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 6:19 p.m.
Subject: Update on your request [redacted]
To: [redacted]Hello,
If you initiate a charge back all records will be mailed to your home.
We do fight all charge backs.
We will win since it is a Legitimize purchase done by you.
Sincerely,
Customer Service
That was followed by:
From: Ashley Madison <support@ashleymadison.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 6:45 p.m.
Subject: Update on your request [redacted]
To: [redacted]Hello,
We are not threatening you.
We are laying the facts to you.
When a person disputes a charge towards a company. The credit card company will mail to your home the documents needed from that company in order to complete the investigation of the charge back.
We are sorry.
Avid Life Media, the company that owns and operates Ashley Madison, confirmed the authenticity of the emails to CNN, saying, “that past practise stopped when our new CEO Rob Segal and new President James Millership took the helm.”
Ashley Madison’s old CEO Noel Biderman might have defended this practice by arguing it was standard protocol for a company to send such paperwork directly to its customers, but it shows the level to which Ashley Madison actually cared about the alleged sacrosanct privacy of its customers. Of course, the simple fact that the company’s entire database was hacked and released online already proved that.
