Companies are often blamed when their services don’t live up to customers’ expectations. Does that mean this business should’ve tried harder to play matchmaker?

Classmates.com, a social networking site that promises to help users reconnect with classmates from college, high school and middle school, is being sued by a disappointed former user. San Diego resident Anthony Michaels had signed up for a free trial of the company’s service when he received an e-mail claiming a few old classmates wanted to connect with him.

Michaels paid $15 to upgrade to the site’s “Gold Membership” program only to come to what he claims was a shocking truth: None of his former classmates wanted to contact him.

He had been messaged by several users, but Michaels claims none of those users were from his alma mater.

Michaels is suing the company for deceptive advertising, and wants the millions of dollars in subscription revenue to be returned to the site’s users.

It’s not a laughing matter to everyone. According to Scott Kamber, Michaels’ lawyer, “cases that seemingly have a chuckle factor are rooted in a real consumer fraud that influences a consumer purchase decision.”

But Classmates may have good defense. Michaels is suing because no one he knew actually contacted him, but someone may have been defrauding Classmates by claiming to have gone to a certain high school when they actually didn’t.

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Tags: Alma mater, Classmates.com, Consumer fraud, Deceptive advertising, High school