Trouble in FarmVille: Facebook, gaming company face lawsuit over deceptive ads

Updated

For the players of Mafia Wars, Vampires, FarmVille and a handful of other Facebook games, the temptation of earning "virtual currency" by clicking on the various offers that popped up on the page was too much to pass up. Unfortunately, what these gamers didn't realize at the time was that the advancement of their virtual characters came at the expense of their own personal bank accounts.

Now, some are fighting back by filing a lawsuit against Facebook and Zynga, the maker of the games. The suit, which is seeking class action status, claims that some offers in the games prompted a series of unauthorized charges or triggered enrollments in programs without the user's knowledge. More than 100,000 people fell victim to these offers, losing more than $5 million, the lawsuit claims.

Advertisement