Comment Unless you *know* German laws, research more! (Score 1) 543
There's several approaches to combating such "bullshit companies".
In this case, I see e.g. defamation, improper use of a trademark, coercing people into a contract because of not visibly telling them the cost and more
Even more, for online contracts people have a right to back off in the first 28 days.
And that's not all, slowly politicians are recognizing that the information provided in registration forms mostly isn't much private anyway, and there's been calls to require a *written* signature (or possibly a cryptographically securely) signature. Of course this won't stop idiots from buying free stuff. While the 'victim' can do whatever he/she likes, why didn't the ask her collegue wether it is free before stupidly buying off a scam.
We have an government institute BSI that takes care of privacy/security concerns of people, mostly because the abuse of expensive phone numbers for scams and trojans. And we have RegTP, an institute specifically for banning abuses phone numbers and that way allowing people to deny the charges for these numbers (I personally had a case on 50EUR).
So... nobody here can claim they didn't know. They can claim they didn't care - nothing more.
This case here is a variation of the above, a company selling services on a product. But depending on the wording of the text on the scammers' site, it's an improper abuse of a trademark, they lacked the *required* cost details.
Ideally Openoffice.org and the victim cooperate on this issue.
Finally a hint for those from Germany who falled for a scam like this and noticed early. If *YOU* made the deal, immediately send them a "Einschreiben", backing of the contract. If if your son/daughter made the deal and is younger than 14, send them a "Einschreiben", too - telling them the contract was void because it would have needed your consent (contracts of value more than their allowance). Finally, with non-signed contracts, there's a chance of calling the contract fake.
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satmd
