Tag: Do Not Call

Announced in June 2019 as part of a crackdown on illegal robocalls against operations around the country responsible for more than one billion calls, thisFTC complaint against five corporate and four individual defendants<, alleges that since at least 2017 the defendants have used a combination of illegal telemarketing robocalls, live telephone calls, text messaging, internet ads, emails, social media, and live events to market and sell consumers fraudulent money-making opportunities. The complaint charges the defendants, who operate from California, Colorado, New York, and Tennessee, with violating the FTC Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), or both, by making deceptive earnings claims through robocalls and other marketing techniques. In September 2021, The Federal Trade Commission sent checks totaling more than $1 million to consumers who were harmed by the company.

In January 2020, three people and a telephone call center that helped Florida-based Grand Bahama Cruise Line LLC (GBCL) and others to make millions of illegal robocalls to consumers settled an FTC complaint and are permanently barred from making telemarketing robocalls. The FTC will litigate in federal court against GBCL and six other defendants involved in the massive operation, who have not agreed to settle. The FTC announced a settlement with the seven remaining defendants in September 2021.

Globex Telecom, Inc. and an affiliated company will pay a total of $1.9 million to settle Federal Trade Commission and State of Ohio charges that they facilitated a scheme that peddled bogus credit card interest rate relief, illegally charging consumers millions of dollars. The settlement marks the end of the FTC’s first consumer protection case against a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider.

The FTC and Ohio alleged that Globex provided a company called Educare Centre Services with the means to make calls to U.S. consumers, including illegal robocalls, to market Educare’s phony credit card interest rate reduction services.

The FTC and Ohio charged that both Globex and Educare were controlled by Mohammed Souheil, Globex’s former CEO and president, who was named in the lawsuit along with a number of other corporations and individuals.

Career Education Corporation (CEC) and its subsidiaries, American InterContinental University, Inc., AIU Online, LLC, Marlin Acquisition Corporation, Colorado Technical University, Inc., and Colorado Tech., Inc. (collectively, CEC), has been ordered to pay $30 million to the FTC to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the operator used sales leads from lead generators that falsely told consumers they were affiliated with the U.S. military, and that used other unlawful tactics to generate leads. CEC’s lead generators also induced consumers to submit their information under the guise of providing job or benefits assistance. The FTC also charged that CEC’s lead generators falsely told consumers that their information would not be shared, and that both CEC and its lead generators illegally called consumers registered on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.

The Federal Trade Commission is sending nearly $30 million in refunds to people tricked by agents working on behalf of Career Education Corporation (currently operating as Perdoceo Education Corporation), the operator of several post-secondary schools.

The DOJ, at the FTC’s request, filed suit in federal district court charging that satellite television provider Dish Network, directly and through its authorized dealers, called numerous consumers whose numbers are on the National Do Not Call Registry. The United States also charged Dish Network, previously known as EchoStar, with violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) by assisting and supporting its authorized dealers in telemarketing Dish Network services via “robocalls” that deliver prerecorded telemarketing messages when consumers answer their phones.  

At the FTC’s request, in May 2019 a U.S. district court in Florida granted summary judgment against two individuals, approved six settlement agreements involving 11 defendants, and entered a default judgment against the remaining seven defendants, officially ending the massive Pointbreak Media robocall scheme. In August 2020, the FTC returned more than $70,000 to consumers defrauded through the scheme.

Announced in June 2019 as part of a crackdown on illegal robocalls against operations around the country responsible for more than one billion calls, the FTC’s complaint against six corporate and three individual defendants jointly doing business as Second Choice Horizon and CSG Solutions, alleges Raymond Gonzalez, Carlos S. Guerrero, and Joshua Hernandez ran a maze of interrelated operations that used illegal robocalls to contact financially distressed consumers with offers of bogus credit card interest rate reduction services. The FTC contends many of the consumers targeted were seniors. In July 2020, the FTC announced the defendants had settled the Commission’s complaint, and are banned from telemarketing and selling debt relief services.

In March 2018, the FTC filed a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction alleging that Alliance Security Inc., a home security installation company, and its founder, directly and through its authorized telemarketers, called millions of consumers whose numbers are on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. At the same time, two of Alliance’s authorized telemarketers and their principals agreed to settle charges that they made illegal calls on Alliance’s behalf. In August 2019, the court issued two orders against the remaining defendants in the case. The first permanently bars Alliance from telemarketing and obtaining or using consumer credit reports without written authorization. The second, a preliminary injunction, imposes the same ban on the company’s CEO and founder Jasjit “Jay” Gotra. In May 2020, the FTC announced that Gotra had settled the case against him under a court order barring him from nearly all outbound telemarketing.