Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008    Text size: 

In the proposed amended complaint filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Trenton, NRM stated a wide variety of claims, including violations of New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation/conversion of confidential and proprietary information, breach of contract, violations of the New Jersey Identity Theft Protection Act, trade libel and other causes of action. The complaint names TMM, its owners John Albright and Charles Berrebbi, Fred Schank and 30 “John Does” as defendants.

The complaint alleged that the security breach that was confirmed by TMM in December was not a “breach” at all, but part of an intentional misappropriation of TMM’s client data undertaken with the knowledge and consent of TMM.

“Upon information and belief the TMM [d]efendants maliciously, intentionally and wantonly abused TMM’s limited authority to access the computer servers of NRM and the class members, and the personal information and proprietary information stored thereon and/or transferred through, by accessing, copying, distributing such information for the TMM defendants’ own purposes,” NR Media alleged in its complaint.

The complaint alleged that Fred Schank, a man allegedly identified as the individual behind the NATS breach, was not a third-party hacker but an “agent, employee and/or representative of” TMM.

“Schank, either in his individual capacity or as an agent, employee and/or representative of the TMM defendants, unlawfully accessed, copied, and misappropriated and converted the personal information and proprietary information stored on the servers of NRM and the members of the class for benefit of himself and/or the TMM defendants,” NRM alleged in its complaint.

The complaint also alleged that TMM has also failed to disclose defects in the NATS software, including that “NATS does not calculate commissions reliably and accurately” and that the NATS’ biller admin “does not interface effectively with all processors, resulting in the under-reporting of sign-ups and rebills” and that “underreporting of rebills has been a chronic problem with CCBill, Electracash, Netbilling, and other processors.”

TMM cofounder John Albright told XBIZ that he had no immediate comment on NRM’s motion to file an amended complaint, but said that the company would likely put out an official statement in response on Thursday.