Tag: Consumer Protection

In July 2024, a U.S. district court in central Florida unsealed a Federal Trade Commission complaint charging two related groups of defendants with defrauding consumers nationwide by enrolling them, without their knowledge, into continuity plans where they are shipped and charged repeatedly for personal care products that they did not agree to purchase.

The defendants allegedly deceived consumers with ads for “free” CBD and Keto-related personal care products, billing many for products they did not consent to purchase, signing many up for unwanted continuity plans, and debiting money from their bank accounts without prior authorization. In September 2024, the FTC announced three orders settling the Commission’s complaint. In December 2025, the FTC announced it was returning 27.6 million to defrauded consumers. 

The FTC approved a proposed order banning SpyFone and its CEO Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance business over allegations that the stalkerware app company secretly harvested and shared data on people’s physical movements, phone use, and online activities through a hidden device hack.

The FTC denied a petition to vacate or modify the FTC’s 2021 order.

The Federal Trade Commission will require education technology provider Illuminate Education, Inc. to implement a data security program and delete unnecessary data to settle allegations that the company’s data security failures led to a major data breach.

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.

In May 2025, the FTC announced that the operators of the scam have agreed to be permanently banned from the debt relief industry and to turn over their assets to resolve allegations that they misled consumers.

The FTC reached a settlement with Apitor Technology over allegations that its app enabled a third party in China to collect geolocation information from children without parental consent.

The Citizens Disability, LLC and its subsidiary will pay a $1 million penalty to resolve FTC allegations that they made tens of millions of illegal calls to consumers and that they misrepresented that they were calling consumers in response to inquiries about their eligibility for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits.