The FTC has recently filed court orders against 18 marketers who were cheating US and Canadian consumers out of more than $7 related to a shady ‘work-at-home’ deal. The defendants conned many consumers into believing that they were going to be able to make money from home by simply referring local merchants to a money-lending service. Unfortunately, the money lending service did not exist.
The victims of this scam were largely seniors and others with limited income or savings. The FTC’s Director of Consumer Protection, Jessica Rich, said, “The defendants tricked people into purchasing worthless ‘business opportunities’.” She went on to say, “We’re pleased the court stopped this deception, which harmed many older people just trying to make a living.”
The defendants were operating at one point as “Money Now Funding” attempted to avoid law enforcement detection by regularly changing product names, merchant identities and office locations. They also made claims that those who signed up for their program could make up to $3000 per month.
The ‘program’ they were selling cost $499. Once unsuspecting victims bought the program, they were told that the best way to succeed was to buy sales leads. These leads could cost tens of thousands of dollars, and turned out to be either non-existent or very poor quality leads that would not translate into any sales.
The announcement from the FTC states that the court’s summary judgement against three defendants, settlements with six defendants and a default judgment against 23 defendants who didn’t ever respond to the charges made against them. The list of individuals and companies charged in the case is quite long.
The various judgments and settlements impose a ban on selling business or work-at-home opportunities on Lukeroy K. Rose, Leary Darling, Solana DePaola, Lance Himes, Cordell Bess, Cynthia Miller, Clinton Rackley, and Richard Frost, and 10 corporate defendants: Money Now Funding LLC, Rose Marketing LLC, DePaola Marketing LLC, Affiliate Marketing Group LLC, Affinity Technologies LLC, Global Network Marketing LLC, Precise Payroll Services LLC, Strategic Media Advertising LLC, Legal Doxs LLC, and US Doc Assist LLC.
Many of the defendants are banned from telemarketing and engaging in misconduct related to promoting work-at-home businesses. The judgement imposed monetary damages of $7.3 Million against 12 defendants and other defendants got smaller judgements. Some of these were suspended due to inability to pay.
