Merkle faces lawsuit from Bluestem Brands

Merkle Inc., a Columbia database marketing firm, is facing a breach of contract lawsuit by one of its clients.

Bluestem Brands Inc., of Eden Prairie, Minn., alleged in its lawsuit that Merkle made various errors in creating and managing a database for Bluestem’s Fingerhut and Gettington.com catalogs. The errors resulted in Bluestem sending “millions of catalog mailings” to “the wrong prospective customers,” according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 17 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The…