Tag: Consumer Protection

The marketers of a dietary supplement called Synovia agreed to settle FTC charges by halting the deceptive tactics they allegedly used to mislead consumers into thinking Synovia could treat arthritis and alleviate joint pain. In December 2020, the Commission announced it was returning almost $775,000 to consumers who both the deceptively marketed product.

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against a debt collection company that allegedly placed bogus or highly questionable debts onto consumers’ credit reports to coerce them to pay the debts. Under a settlement with the FTC, the company, Midwest Recovery Systems (Midwest Recovery), is prohibited from the practice, known as “debt parking,” and required to delete the debts it previously reported to credit reporting agencies. The FTC alleged that Midwest Recovery collected more than $24 million from consumers on such debts, largely by debt parking.

In November 2020, at the FTC’s request, a federal court in Ohio issued a temporary restraining order against 25 counterfeit websites that allegedly have been playing on consumers’ COVID-19 pandemic fears to trick them into paying for Clorox and Lysol products that the defendants never deliver.