Tag: Bureau of Consumer Protection

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Invitation Homes, the country’s largest landlord of single-family homes, for an array of unlawful actions against consumers, including deceiving renters about lease costs, charging undisclosed junk fees, failing to inspect homes before residents moved in, and unfairly withholding tenants’ security deposits when they moved out.

Invitation Homes has agreed to a proposed settlement order that would require the company to turn over $48 million to be used to refund consumers harmed by its actions. The corporate landlord will also be required to clearly disclose its leasing prices, establish policies and procedures to handle security deposit refunds fairly, and stop other unlawful behavior.

The FTC took action against a business opportunity scheme that allegedly falsely promised consumers that they would make guaranteed income through online storefronts that utilized AI-powered software. According to the FTC, the scheme, which has operated under the names Passive Scaling and FBA Machine, cost consumers more than $15.9 million based on deceptive earnings claims that rarely, if ever, materialize.

As a result of the FTC’s complaint, a federal court issued an order temporarily halting the scheme and putting it under the control of a receiver. The case against the scheme is still under way and will be decided by a federal court. 

According to the FTC’s complaint, Rytr’s service generated detailed reviews that contained specific, often material details that had no relation to the user’s input, and these reviews almost certainly would be false for the users who copied them and published them online. In many cases, subscribers’ AI-generated reviews featured information that would deceive potential consumers who were using the reviews to make purchasing decisions. The complaint further alleges that at least some of Rytr’s subscribers used the service to produce hundreds, and in some cases tens of thousands, of reviews potentially containing false information.

The proposed order settling the Commission’s complaint is designed to prevent Rytr from engaging in similar illegal conduct in the future. It would bar the company from advertising, promoting, marketing, or selling any service dedicated to – or promoted as – generating consumer reviews or testimonials. 

The FTC has charged a business opportunity scheme with falsely claiming to help consumers build an “AI-powered Ecommerce Empire” by participating in its training programs that can cost almost $2,000 or by buying a “done for you” online storefront for tens of thousands of dollars. The scheme, known as Ecommerce Empire Builders (EEB), claims consumers can potentially make millions of dollars, but the FTC’s complaint alleges that those profits fail to materialize.

As a result of the FTC’s complaint, a federal court issued an order temporarily halting the scheme and putting it under the control of a receiver. The FTC’s case against the scheme is ongoing and will be decided by a federal court. 

The FTC has filed a lawsuit against an online business opportunity scheme that it alleges has falsely claimed its “cutting edge” AI-powered tools would help consumers quickly earn thousands of dollars a month in passive income by opening online storefronts. According to the complaint, the scheme has defrauded consumers of at least $25 million.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the operators of the scheme charge consumers tens of thousands of dollars to start online stores on ecommerce platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, and TikTok, while also requiring them to spend tens of thousands more on inventory. Ascend’s advertising content claimed the company was a leader in ecommerce, using proprietary software and artificial intelligence to maximize clients’ business success.

The FTC is taking action against DoNotPay, a company that claimed to offer an AI service that was “the world’s first robot lawyer,” but the product failed to live up to its lofty claims that the service could substitute for the expertise of a human lawyer.

DoNotPay has agreed to a proposed Commission order settling the charges against it. The settlement would require it to pay $193,000, provide a notice to consumers who subscribed to the service between 2021 and 2023 warning them about the limitations of law-related features on the service. The proposed order also will prohibit the company from making claims about its ability to substitute for any professional service without evidence to back it up. 

In July 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it stopped the operators of a scheme that it says tricked financially strapped consumers seeking student loan relief into paying hundreds of dollars in junk fees. The operators often targeted Spanish-speaking consumers in Puerto Rico, pretended to be affiliated with the Department of Education and its loan servicers, and made false promises of low, permanently fixed monthly payments and loan forgiveness.

A federal court temporarily halted the scheme and froze its assets at the request of the FTC, which seeks to end the unlawful practices and secure redress for the thousands of consumers who have been harmed.

In July 2024, NRRM, LLC, which does business as CarShield, along with American Auto Shield, LLC, the administrator of its vehicle service contracts, agreed to pay $10 million to settle FTC charges that its advertisements and telemarketing for VSC are deceptive and misleading, and that many purchasers found that many repairs were not “covered,” despite making payments of up to $120 per month. The FTC also alleges CarShield’s celebrity and consumer endorsers made false statements in its ads.