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For consumers who took out loans with online payday lender AMG, the company’s illegal tactics left many of them saying OMG. But finally there’s good news for AMG customers arriving in the form of $505 million in refund checks just mailed to people who borrowed money between January 2008 through January 2013. That’s the largest amount ever sent in a refund program run by the FTC. At the same time, we have two messages for companies: a law...

This week, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first FTC regional office. According to the Commission’s 1918 Annual Report, the FTC first established three branch offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco in order to handle the agency’s growing workload. Right away, these offices were conducting investigations, writing reports, and contributing to the work of the agency. Over the years, the FTC has added...

This year eight major league baseball teams are celebrating milestone anniversaries – and so are the FTC’s regional offices. In 1918, the Commission opened the first three of its regional offices. Today, eight regional offices continue to knock it out the park on behalf of America’s consumers. So it’s only fitting that on this momentous day we acknowledge the regional offices’ century of pennant-winning performances. According to the Commission’s...

Thanks to a new federal law, free credit freezes and year-long fraud alerts are here, starting September 21st. What does that mean for your customers and employees? Free credit freezes Security freezes, also known as credit freezes, restrict access to a consumer’s credit file, making it harder for identity thieves to open new accounts in the consumer’s name. Starting September 21st, consumers can freeze and unfreeze their credit file for free...

“A guy walks into a bar . . . .” It’s a typical set-up for a stand-up comedian, but we never thought it would be the opener about a proposed FTC settlement involving unproven treatment claims for serious diseases. Texas-based A&O Enterprises, iV Bars, and owner Aaron Roberts sell and administer intravenous “cocktails” – bags containing mixtures of water, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids administered through an IV drip. Customers who visit an...

We’ll grudgingly give this to Innovative Paycheck Solutions and FakePayStubOnline.com. The California-based operation owned by Katrina Moore really did sell fake bank statements, W-2s, profit and loss statements, and “other income verification documents” – although we’re still trying to get our head around the oxymoronic advertising claim that the site sold “Authentic Fake Pay Stubs!” The site offered a host of customized options including...

As the song goes, “A house is not a home.” And as alleged in an FTC lawsuit against the operators of rental listing websites, sometimes an apartment isn’t an apartment. Steven Shayan, Kevin Shayan, and affiliated companies run ApartmentHunterz.com, FeaturedRentals.com, and WeTakeSection8.com. For consumers who pay weekly or monthly subscription fees, the defendants promise accurate listings for available units. For example, ApartmentHunterz.com...

The FTC just announced a Made in USA hat trick: two proposed settlements and a final order arising from allegedly deceptive claims by a New York hockey puck seller, a California-based backpack business, and an online mattress company. The message for marketers? Given the importance of country-of-origin representations to many consumers, companies can expect the FTC to call offsides on misleading Made in USA claims. Patriot Puck, owner George...

Last month, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the FTC’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction, halting Wilhelmsen’s proposed acquisition of Drew Marine following a 10-day hearing. The opinion, a redacted version of which is now public, contains insights on esoteric but important areas of merger analysis of interest to antitrust practitioners, namely cluster markets, product markets for...

Court orders against 13 related corporate and individual defendants involved in a Georgia-based debt collection operation bring to mind the 1980s chart-topping group from Australia, Crowded House. That’s because now that Advanced Mediation Group’s enterprise has been shuttered, the FTC’s “house” of individuals and corporations banned for life from the debt collection industry just got a little more crowded. According to the FTC, one of the...