Artsana, a maker of child car booster seats, last year agreed to settle claims that it had misled customers about how to use its products, offering $50 to people who had bought Chicco-brand seats.
The company, which did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, knew it sold roughly 875,000 such seats, yet court records show that by the end of October it had received more than 3.3 million claims for payment.
Faced with a wave of questionable claims, Artsana reversed itself and urged the court not to approve the settlement it had negotiated to end the litigation.
“Criminals targeted the claims process in this case using sophisticated methods to generate l