Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

The Federal Trade Commission charged the operators of two similar student loan debt relief schemes, Manhattan Beach Ventures and Student Advocates Team, and a financing company that assisted them, Equitable Acceptance Corporation, with bilking millions of dollars from consumers.

In May 2021, the FTC sent payments totaling more than $273,500 to consumers who lost money to the student loan debt relief scheme.

In April 2021, the FTC charged St. Louis-based chiropractor Eric Anthony Nepute and his company Quickwork LLC with violating the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act, by deceptively marketing products containing vitamin D and zinc as scientifically proven to treat or prevent COVID-19. This is the first such case in which the agency has sought civil penalties.

The Federal Trade Commission is sending full refunds totaling more than $11 million to consumers who lost money to a bogus credit card interest rate reduction scheme operated by E.M. Systems & Services.

The FTC and the State of Florida alleged that the company’s owners, Steven D. Short and Karissa L. Dyar, used a variety of phony business names with associated websites, cold-called consumers with credit card debt and falsely promised to save them thousands of dollars by reducing their credit card interest rates. The FTC says that the defendants charged an up-front fee between $695 and $1,495, and falsely promised to provide refunds to consumers if they failed to reduce the interest rates.

In April 2021, the FTC used funds from this case to provide $11 million in redress to consumers harmed by the E.M. Systems and Services scam.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the Illinois Attorney General are sending payments totaling more than $4 million to more than 10,000 consumers who lost money to the Stark Law phantom debt collection scheme.

According a suit filed by the FTC and the Illinois Attorney General, Stark Law used a host of business names to target consumers who obtained or applied for payday or other short-term loans, pressuring them into paying debts they either did not owe or that the defendants had no authority to collect. The defendants allegedly called consumers and demanded immediate payment for supposedly delinquent loans, at times threatening consumers with lawsuits or arrest, falsely claiming they would be charged with “defrauding a financial institution” or “passing a bad check.”

Online children’s education company Age of Learning, Inc., which operates ABCmouse, will pay $10 million and change its negative option marketing and billing practices to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it made misrepresentations about cancellations and failed to disclose important information to consumers, leading tens of thousands of people to be renewed and charged for memberships without proper consent.  The complaint also alleges the Southern California-based company unfairly billed ABCmouse users without their authorization and made it difficult for consumers to cancel their memberships, preventing consumers from avoiding additional charges. In April 2021, the FTC announced it was sending $9.7 million in refunds to defrauded consumers.

Gennex Media LLC, which sells customizable promotional products such as wristbands, lanyards, temporary tattoos, and buttons, and its owner, Akil Kurji, will settle FTC charges that they made false, misleading, or unsupported advertising claims that their “Brandnex” products were all or virtually all made in the United States. The complaint alleges Gennex and Kurji violated the FTC Act by claiming on their Brandnex website that the products they sell are made in the United States, when in numerous instances the products are wholly imported from China. Under the proposed settlement, Gennex and Kurji are prohibited from making the deceptive claims alleged in the complaint and are required to pay a monetary judgment of $146,249.24. On April 14, 2021, the Commission announced the final consent agreement in this matter.

The FTC's administrative complaint against Impax charges that in 2010, Impax and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. illegally agreed that Impax would not compete by marketing a generic version of Endo’s Opana ER until January 2013. In exchange, Endo paid Impax more than $112 million.

Endo agreed to settle these charges in a stipulated order entered in federal court. See FTC v. Allergan plc, and Watson Laboratories, Inc. et al.

The Commission’s 2019 opinion held that the FTC staff had proven that the agreement between Impax and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Commission’s opinion reversed Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell’s initial decision.

In April 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the Commission’s opinion.

Wine and spirits maker E. & J. Gallo Winery has agreed to divest several product lines and remove certain others from its asset purchase agreement with competitor Constellation Brands, Inc. to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that their proposed $1.7 billion transaction would violate federal antitrust law. The complaint alleges that unremedied, the proposed acquisition would eliminate head-to-head competition between Gallo and Constellation and thereby was likely to substantially lessen competition in the United States for six types of wine-and-spirits products: entry-level on-premise sparkling wine, low-priced sparkling wine, low-priced brandy, low-priced port, low-priced sherry, and high color concentrates.The FTC announced approval of the final order in April 2021.

The Federal Trade Commission, along with 46 agencies from 38 states and the District of Columbia, has stopped a massive telefunding operation that bombarded 67 million consumers with 1.3 billion deceptive charitable fundraising calls (mostly illegal robocalls). The defendants collected more than $110 million using their deceptive solicitations. Associated Community Services (ACS) and a number of related defendants have agreed to settle charges by the FTC and state agencies that they duped generous Americans into donating to charities that failed to provide the services they promised.

The FTC sued the operators of a mobile banking app, alleging that they falsely promised users high interest rates on their accounts and “24/7” access to their funds.

Online fashion retailer Fashion Nova will pay $9.3 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it didn’t properly notify consumers and give them the chance to cancel their orders when it failed to ship merchandise in a timely manner, and that it illegally used gift cards to compensate consumers for unshipped merchandise instead of providing refunds.

The FTC alleged that this company and its operators collected more than $5.2 million from consumers through illegal debt collection practices. In its complaint, the FTC alleged that the company used the defendants in the National Landmark Logistics case to place deceptive robocalls alleging that consumers owed debt and faced legal action if they did not reply. Once consumers called the defendants after receiving the message, the defendants often falsely claimed to be representing a law firm or threatened consumers with arrest if they did not immediately pay the debt. 

Under the terms of their settlements, Lashone Elam (also known as Lashone Caldwell); Absolute Financial Services, LLC; Absolute Financial Services Recovery, LLC; AFSR Global Logistics, LLC; and Talesia Neely will be permanently banned from playing any role in debt collection.

They will also be prohibited from making certain misrepresentations to consumers, including whether a consumer owes them a payment, whether they are attorneys or associated with a law firm, or the terms of any refund program.