The company that sold bogus genealogical yearbooks has settled a consumer protection lawsuit filed by the Colorado Attorney General.
The company, Morphcorp LLC and its president, Maxwell MacMaster, agreed to pay a $30,000 penalty and make significant changes in the way “Family Yearbooks” are marketed.
When the lawsuit was filed in November, Attorney General John Suthers said it was a lucrative scam that swindled 150,000 people nationwide who bought the fake family histories for $49.95 each.
The yearbooks all had the same family coat of arms, family recipes and family jokes.
“The ‘Family Yearbook’ was nothing more than a photocopy of the same material deceptively sold to thousands of customers,” Suthers said today.
Suthers said that MacMaster exploited a natural human emotion – a curiosity about family history – and made a lot of money doing so.
According to the lawsuit, MacMaster advertised in magazines and sent out mailings offering a yearbook detailing 2,000 years of family history.
Among the things the settlement prohibits MacMaster from doing is to say the “Family Yearbook” is compiled, authored, sponsored by “contributing family members and that it contains 2,000 years of history regarding a specific family.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
