Calling the actions of a collection of lead generation companies “Illegal Acts,” the FTC has taken action against Consumer Education Group aka ePath Media operating out of California and Colorado.
They have settled Federal Trade Commission charges that, between late 2013 and 2015, it made millions of illegal telemarketing calls to consumers on the national Do Not Call (DNC) Registry — including pre-recorded robocalls — as part of a campaign to generate sales leads for third-parties.
The FTC has ordered a penalty of $2,339,687 civil penalty for the “illegal acts.”
The defendants said they were unable to pay the bill and will only pay $100,000.
If they are found not to be doing that bad, and have lied about the condition of the company, the FTC said “the full amount of the penalty will become due.”
According to the FTC: “None of the calls placed to consumers identified the operation by a name consumers would recognize as someone they had authorized to call them. More than two million calls were placed to consumers registered on the DNC registry. The FTC alleged that the telemarketing campaign was not to solicit actual sales to consumers but rather designed to collect consumers’ names and phone numbers and sell the information as leads to third party merchants.”
United States of America, Plaintiff, vs. Consumer Education.info, Inc. also d/b/a Consumer Outreach, a Missouri corporation; DHM Media, Inc., a Colorado corporation; ePath Live LLC, a Missouri limited liability corporation; WebNet Consulting, Inc. also d/b/a ePath Media, a California corporation; William R. Baskin, individually and as an officer of Consumer Education.info, Inc. also d/b/a Consumer Outreach, ePath Live LLC, and WebNet Consulting, Inc. also d/b/a ePath Media; Jeremy Buttke, individually and as an officer of Consumer Education.info, Inc. also d/b/a Consumer Outreach, ePath Live LLC, and WebNet Consulting Inc. also d/b/a ePath Media; Tetsuya Kosaka, individually and as an officer of Consumer Education.info, Inc. also d/b/a Consumer Outreach, ePath Live LLC, and WebNet Consulting Inc. also d/b/a ePath Media, and Jeffrey L. Randol, individually and as an officer of Consumer Education.info, Inc. also d/b/a Consumer Outreach and of ePath Live LLC and as an officer and sole shareholder of DHM Media Inc.; Defendants.
