Tag: Bureau of Consumer Protection

The operators of a business coaching scheme will pay at least $1.2 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they targeted people who were trying to start new businesses online and used deception to sell them bogus marketing products and services.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Position Gurus and Top Shelf Ecommerce, and their owners Aaron Poysky, Stacy Griego and Samuel Cohen Brown, targeted consumers who were looking for ways to make money by starting retail businesses on the Internet. The defendants found many of their targets by purchasing consumers’ contact information from other online business coaching operations that had already deceived the targets. In August 2021, the FTC sent refunds totaling more than $1.5 million to defrauded consumers.
 

Kuuhuub Inc., Kuu Hubb Oy and Recolor Oy settled FTC allegations that they violated a children’s privacy law by collecting and disclosing personal information about children who used the app without notifying their parents and obtaining their consent.

In July 2021, the owners of a New Jersey-based company that sells septic tank cleaning products agreed to a permanent ban on telemarketing and will pay more than $1.6 million to settle FTC charges that the company and its telemarketer made illegal robocalls to consumers, including tens of millions of calls to numbers listed on the agency’s DNC Registry. In addition, the defendants will turn over a residential property as part of the settlement. The complaint names as defendants: Environmental Safety International, Inc. or ESI; ESI’s two officers, brothers Joseph Carney and Sean Carney; and their other brother Raymond Carney.