Petersen Games, publishers of Cthulhu Wars and Planet Apocalypse, is suing German shipping company, CCS. The charges include fraud and RICO violations.
Petersen Games claims that CCS has double and triple billed them, in some cases for services that were never provided. They also claim contract violations and the holding of inventory “hostage” until further payments were made.
The suit alleges that the excess billing alone accounts for $495,789, while the value of the hostage inventory is $340,205.58. According to Petersen Games, CCS have resisted all inquiries about the missing product and overbilling, instead resorting to threats.
CCS itself has threatened to file lawsuits in Germany against Petersen Games, to pressure EU customs agents to reject Petersen products, and to lobby to get Petersen Games’ VAT tax registration cancelled, among other things.
Petersen Games has worked with a financial company called Investable to analyze all the details in question in the lawsuit. The analysis revealed nine types of billing errors, one of which occurred 260 times in a total of 814 invoices.
Investable also found incorrect dating of invoices and even invoices that were re-billed but added to the previously billed amount for the same invoice.
The charges were filed in Utah and include Fraud, Unjust Enrichment, Civil RICO, and Conspiracy under 18 U.S.C.
