Announced Actions for June 5, 2001

Consent agreements given final approval:

Following a public comment period, the Commission has made final a consent agreement regarding the following and forwarded letters to the commentors of record: Hannaford Brothers Co. The Commission vote to finalize the consent agreement was 5-0. (FTC File No. 991-0838; staff contact is Michael E. Antalics, Senior Deputy Director, Bureau of Competition, 202-326-2821; see press release dated July 25, 2000.)

Following a public comment period, the Commission has made final a consent agreement regarding the following: Stoker, Inc. The Commission vote to finalize the consent agreement was 5-0. (FTC File No. 012-3015; staff contact is Michael Ostheimer, Bureau of Consumer Protection, 202-326-2699; see press release dated April 19, 2001.)

Public notice to customers of Medicor LLC:

In late February, the FTC filed a complaint against Medicor LLC ("Medicor") and its owner, Andrew Rubin, charging them with misrepresenting their medical billing employment opportunities. A federal judge in Los Angeles subsequently issued a preliminary injunction against the defendants, froze their assets and appointed a receiver for the company.

In late May, someone pretending to be an FTC employee sent e-mail messages to many Medicor customers asking them to send him their social security numbers and birth dates as "evidence" for the FTC's case against Medicor. This person is not an FTC employee, and is not associated with the FTC in any way. Impersonating a federal employee and using identification information without authorization are crimes. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, working with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, has stopped this scheme.

For more information about identity theft and how to minimize your risk of becoming a victim, visit www.consumer.gov/idtheft. For information about the FTC's case against Medicor, call 202-326-3539 or 202-326-2647.

Copies of the documents mentioned in this release are available from the FTC's Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC's Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. To file a complaint, or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at www.ftc.gov. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.