Legal Library: Search

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against payment processing company BlueSnap, Inc., along with its former CEO Ralph Dangelmaier and senior vice president Terry Monteith, charging them with knowingly processing payments for deceptive and fraudulent companies. The defendants have agreed to a settlement that will require them to turn over $10 million for consumers and stop processing payments for certain high-risk clients.

In a federal court complaint, the FTC charged that BlueSnap and its officers processed millions of dollars in credit card payments for ACRO Services despite substantial evidence that the company was fraudulent. The FTC sued ACRO Services in November 2022.

Home products company Williams-Sonoma will be required to pay a record civil penalty of $3.175 million for violating a 2020 Federal Trade Commission order requiring the retailer to tell the truth about whether the products it sells are Made in USA.

In a complaint filed by the Department of Justice upon notification and referral from the FTC, the agency charges that Williams-Sonoma listed multiple products for sale as being “Made in USA” when in fact they were made in China and other countries. The company has agreed to a settlement that requires them to pay the civil penalty, which is the largest ever in a Made in USA case.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against bill payment company Doxo and two of its co-founders, charging that the company uses misleading search ads to impersonate consumers’ billers and deceptive design practices to mislead consumers about millions of dollars in junk fees they tacked on to consumers’ bills.

The complaint alleges that Doxo, its CEO and co-founder Steve Shivers, and its vice president and co-founder Roger Parks, have known from years of internal surveys and complaints from tens of thousands of consumers and hundreds of billers of the harms their business model caused consumers and have still failed to correct their unlawful actions.

The FTC  charged Ring with compromising its customers’ privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers’ private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos.