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In February 2023, the FTC took action against a marketer of vitamins and other supplements called The Bountiful Company for abusing a feature of Amazon.com to deceive consumers into thinking that its newly introduced supplements had more product ratings and reviews, higher average ratings, and “#1 Best Seller” and “Amazon’s Choice” badges. The case against Bountiful marks the FTC’s first law enforcement challenging “review hijacking,” in which a marketer steals or repurposes reviews of another product. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in consumer redress to settle the FTC’s complaint. In March 2024, the Commission announced it was sending more than $527,000 to impacted consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission has stopped Mission Hills Federal, a student loan debt relief scheme, alleging it bilked more than $23 million from thousands of consumers with false claims that it would service and pay down their student loans. After the FTC filed a complaint seeking to end the deceptive practices, a federal court temporarily halted the scheme and froze its assets. The FTC filed an amended complaint on August 27, 2019, adding Labiba Velazquez as an alleged defendant. On July 20, 2020, the court granted final summary judgment.

In June 2021, the defendants appealed the District Court’s granting of summary judgment. In June 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision, rejecting the defendants’ arguments and affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment, ruling in favor of the FTC. In March 2024, the FTC sent more than $4.1 million in refunds to consumers harmed by the defendants. 

The Federal Trade Commission and 10 states are suing sham charity Cancer Recovery Foundation International, also known as Women’s Cancer Fund, and its operator, Gregory B. Anderson, for deceiving generous donors who sought to offer financial support to women battling cancer and their families.

In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC and states allege that, from 2017 to 2022, Women’s Cancer Fund collected more than $18 million from donors. The sham charity claimed that it would use the donated funds to help women who were undergoing treatment for cancer and their families pay for basic needs. Instead, the complaint charges, only about a penny of every dollar donated went to provide such support, while the overwhelming majority went to pay for-profit fundraisers and Anderson.

Rite Aid is prohibited from using facial recognition technology for security or surveillance purposes for five years to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the retailer failed to implement reasonable procedures and prevent harm to consumers in its use of facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores.

The proposed order requires Rite Aid to implement comprehensive safeguards to prevent these types of harm to consumers when deploying automated systems that use biometric information to track them or flag them as security risks. It also requires Rite Aid to discontinue using any such technology if it cannot control potential risks to consumers. To settle charges it violated a 2010 Commission data security order by failing to adequately oversee its service providers, Rite Aid is also required to implement a robust information security program, which must be overseen by the company’s top executives.

The Federal Trade Commission will require the divestiture of energy producer EP Energy Corp.’s entire business and assets in Utah. The divestiture will resolve the agency’s allegations that EnCap Energy Capital Fund XI, L.P.’s proposed $1.445 billion acquisition of EP Energy Corp. would eliminate head-to-head competition between two of only four significant producers and otherwise harm competition for the sale of Uinta Basin waxy crude oil to Salt Lake City refiners. According to the complaint, the proposed acquisition could also increase the likelihood of collusion or coordination among the remaining competitors in the Uinta Basin.  On Sept. 14, 2022, the Commission announced the final consent agreement in this matter.

The Federal Trade Commission has obtained proposed orders against the operators of a wide-ranging scheme known as “The Sales Mentor” that made millions by falsely promising consumers that they could make big money from telemarketing sales.

The defendants have agreed to proposed court orders that would require them to pay a total of $1 million for consumer refunds.

In a federal court complaint, the FTC charged the Tennessee-based group of companies, their owners, their officers, and a former sales director with deceiving consumers to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for supposed telemarketing training programs that rarely, if ever, delivered on what was promised. In addition, the FTC said the companies continued to make deceptive earnings claims even after they received the FTC’s Notices of Penalty Offenses on money-making opportunities and on endorsements and testimonials warning them that such conduct is illegal.