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A San Diego man, Anthony Michaels, is suing Classmates.com. Apparently his high school buddies weren’t really looking for him. From Wired.

But once he’d parted with the $15, Michaels learned the shocking truth: No one he knew was trying to contact him at all. Classmates.com’s come-on was a lie, and he’d been scammed.

So, uh…it’s 15 bucks man. I mean, you thought that these guys were really sitting around wondering what you were doing? Couldn’t dial 411? Couldn’t ask around?

What is this all about?

Let’s look at the lawyer talk.

“Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts … Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile,” the complaint reads. “Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized … as members who viewed Plaintiff’s profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter.”

Well OK, when you put it that way it all makes sense. Still just 15 bucks though. Still a scam that most people see right through or, if they don’t, they keep quiet so as not to risk further embarrassment.

But, this thing has the potential to be a big class action suit and that’s where the lawyers are licking their chops. Apparently, Mr. Michaels isn’t the only guy that fell for the ruse .

So, does Classmates.com have a chance in this one? Let’s get a lawyer in here.

Classmates.com could have a good defense, according to internet law expert Mark Rasch, if someone was actually contacting Michaels but was defrauding Classmates.com by claiming to have gone to a certain high school.

“Or were they making statements they know to be false to induce a person to pony up the money for a premium service to learn these statements weren’t true?” Rasch asked. “A lot of this comes down to knowledge and intent on the part of Classmates.com.”

Internet law expert!!?? Hunh!!??

So, this guy thinks there is a remote possibility that someone was actually trying to contact Michaels but, they lied about going to school with him? Maybe that holds up in internet court.

How do you think this one shakes out guys?

There aren’t a whole bunch of people making money by selling ads on the internet. One way to make some dough is to sell space to Classmates.com for those goofy ads nobody falls for. But wait, some people do fall for them and they want their $15.00 back. Get enough of them to fess up and a bunch of lawyers make a bunch of money and maybe put outfits like Classmates.com out of the game because they will not want to be the next to fall.

So, you want to know how to make money from the internet?

Become a lawyer.