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The online ads offer consumers a “risk-free trial” of skincare products from companies that claim to be accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A- rating. How could that possibly be deceptive or unfair? Let us count the ways. An FTC lawsuit filed in a California federal court alleges that an interconnected operation of 15 companies and 7 individuals uses trickery to get consumers to turn over their credit or debit card numbers and then...

Everywhere these days, folks are talking about big data. (Apparently, even machines are talking amongst themselves using big data in an ecosystem called the Internet of Things.) Last week, Chairwoman Ramirez spoke about the privacy implications of the big data revolution, and specifically, about the FTC’s law enforcement efforts to protect consumer privacy from the risks associated with the collection and use of consumer data. Recently, I was...

Thinking about crowdfunding to raise money for your latest project? If so, you’ll want to pay attention to the FTC’s first crowdfunding case. The lesson: If you launch a crowdfunding campaign, keep your promises. The FTC just settled a case against the creator of a crowdfunding project who did not keep his promises. According to the FTC, Erik Chevalier misled consumers about his project to produce a board game called “The Doom that Came to...

It’s a text that would make most people take notice: ALERT ALERT ALERT .. YOUR PAYMENT WAS DECLINED DUE TO AN INSUFFICIENT ACH TRANSACTION…CALL 866.597.3075. But it wasn’t really an alert. There wasn’t a declined payment. And an “insufficient ACH transaction” isn’t even a real thing. It was a deceptive text message sent by debt collectors to illegally lure purported debtors into contacting them. That’s just one example from three separate cases...

Caribbean cruises, jet ski outings, trips to Disneyworld, tickets to sporting events and concerts, and even dating service subscriptions. You’d expect to see that on reruns of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” What you wouldn’t expect is that they were paid for by donations people made to cancer charities. That’s what the FTC and 58 law enforcement partners from every state and the District of Columbia allege in a lawsuit filed against four...

Consumers frequently contact the Bureau of Competition to alert us that the cost of a prescription drug suddenly spiked up, and ask if the FTC can take antitrust action to bring the price back down. The answer in a nutshell is that it depends on the reason for the price change. We’ve examined this issue a number of times and often found that price changes (up or down) are due to normal market forces and thus do not present an antitrust issue. One...

A royal flush? More like a royal pain for consumers who trusted claims that moist flushable wipes manufactured by trade supplier Nice-Pak were safe for home plumbing systems. According to an FTC complaint, the wipes were made of a non-woven fabric that didn’t break down as quickly and easily as advertised, rendering that “flushable” claim a pipe dream – or maybe a pipe nightmare if your sewer or septic system got clogged as a result. Suffice it...

Everyone harbors a dark secret – a forbidden mystery concealed behind closed doors. Three cases just filed by the FTC pull back the curtain on one of those taboos: The efforts people make to hide the fact they’re going gray. The marketers of three dietary supplements – Get Away Grey, Go Away Gray, and Grey Defence – all claimed their products could stop hair from turning gray. The purported active ingredient was an enzyme called catalase, which...

A fundamental principle of competition is that consumers – not regulation – should determine what they buy and how they buy it. Consumers may benefit from the ability to buy cars directly from manufacturers – whether they are shopping for luxury cars or economy vehicles. The same competition principles should apply in either case. For several years now, there have been reports of the challenges faced by Tesla Motors in selling its luxury electric...

By now, it shouldn’t be news. Using illegal spam and bogus news sites to convey false claims for diet products is bound to attract FTC attention. Oh, and did we mention the phony representation that the products were endorsed by Oprah and the people on the TV show "The Doctors"? Those are just some of the allegations in a case the FTC has filed against Glendale, California-based Sale Slash, Purists Choice, Artur Babayan, and Vahe Haroutounian...