New York Paralegal Blog

Ever signed up for a dating site and felt like you got a raw deal? You're not alone. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the government agency that protects consumers, recently took a major stand against some of the biggest names in online dating. ⚖️ The FTC has reached a settlement with Match Group, the parent company of popular dating sites like Match.com, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish, and The League. The company has agreed to pay $14 million and change its business practices to resolve charges that it tricked consumers. What Were the Allegations? 🤔 The FTC's complaint, filed in 2019, alleged that Match Group engaged in three main unfair and deceptive practices: Misleading Guarantees: Match.com advertised a "six-month guarantee" for users who didn't "meet someone special." However, the FTC claims the company failed to clearly disclose all the fine print. Consumers had to jump through a bunch of hoops and meet specific, often difficult, requiremen...

Hey everyone, let's talk about a big win for consumers! The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just delivered a huge blow to a business opportunity scam that tricked people with false promises of easy money through Amazon and Walmart. It's a tough reminder to be cautious, but also a fantastic example of justice being served. What Happened? Basically, these companies and their operators — including a key player named Steven J. Mayer — told folks they could make a fortune by having the defendants set up and run online stores for them. We're talking claims of "$100K+ per month" and even "million-dollar" operations. Sounds great, right? The harsh reality? These promises were almost never true. Instead of striking it rich, most people lost tens of thousands of dollars and ended up buried under crushing debt. It's truly heartbreaking to hear about people trying to secure their financial future only to be preyed upon like this. As Christopher Mufarr...

The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has sent comments to Florida State Representative Daphne Campbell, at her request, regarding House Bill (H.B) 4103, which would remove some of the constraints on the supervisory arrangements between doctors and advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs) that are now required under Florida law. According to the comments, the proposed bill appears to represent a pro-competitive improvement in the law – one that is likely to benefit Florida health care consumers. H.B. 4103 would rescind certain restrictive supervision requirements for ARNPs and physician assistants in Florida that were adopted in 2006, while retaining the general supervision requirements that predate the 2006 legislation. According to the FTC staff’s comments, the 2006 legislation imposed administrative costs and other restrictions on doctors who supervise ARNPs. By removing some of these restrictions, H.B. 4103 is likely to reduce the costs of basic health care services pr...

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has accepted a final settlement with an online data broker that charged consumers $10 based on the false promise that it could “lock their records” so that others could not see or buy them. The FTC charged that its claims were deceptive and violated federal law. The settlement, first announced September 22, 2010, requires that the broker, US Search, refund the fees it charged to nearly 5,000 consumers, and it bars misrepresentations about the effectiveness of any service that claims to remove information about consumers from the broker’s website. The Commission vote to accept the settlement as final was 5-0, with Commissioner Julie Brill issuing a separate concurring statement. In her concurring statement, Commissioner Brill said industry should consider providing consumers with meaningful notice about information brokers’ practices, a reasonable means to access and correct consumers’ information, and a reasonable mechan...

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal judge has shut down an operation that allegedly posed as the U.S. government, then duped consumers into paying fees ranging from $200 to $2,500 by claiming the fees would cover processing by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The court froze the defendants’ assets and appointed a receiver to take over the business until the case is resolved. The FTC has asked the court to halt the business practices permanently and order the operation to repay its victims. The real U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, offers advice and counseling to immigrants in the United States and people seeking to immigrate to the United States. USCIS provides application forms for such benefits as green card renewal, work visas, and applications for asylum. The application forms are free but can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to process.

FTC Announces Revised Thresholds for Clayton Act Antitrust Reviews The Federal Trade Commission announced it has revised the thresholds that determine whether companies are required to notify federal antitrust authorities about a transaction under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. The HSR Act requires companies to notify authorities if – among other things – the value of a transaction exceeds the filing thresholds. The FTC is required to revise those thresholds annually, based on the change in gross national product. This year, the threshold for reporting proposed mergers and acquisitions under Section 7 of the Act increased from $63.4 million to $66.0 million.

Three Firms Will Pay More Than $400,000 in Total Penalties Three online retailers have agreed to pay more than $400,000 in total penalties to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they failed to post EnergyGuide information on their websites to inform consumers about the energy use of major home appliances they sell. The agency also notified two other online sellers that it will seek a total of $640,000 in fines from them. According to the FTC, the online appliance retailers knowingly violated the FTC’s Appliance Labeling Rule, which requires them to provide EnergyGuide information for certain products such as refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, air conditioners, water heaters, and washing machines. The information estimates the annual cost to operate the appliance.

Court Backs FTC, Cites "Complete Absence of Support" for Vast Majority of Health Claims A federal appeals court in Boston has upheld a decision in favor of the Federal Trade Commission that orders marketers of dietary supplements to pay $48.2 million for deceiving the public with phony health claims for their “Supreme Greens” and “Coral Calcium” dietary supplements. Infomercial pitchman Donald W. Barrett and his associates had touted the supplements as a cure for ailments ranging from cancer and Parkinson’s disease to heart disease and autoimmune diseases. Barrett, co-defendant Robert Maihos, and their two companies had appealed a lower court decision in favor of the FTC, which charged the defendants with deceptive advertising. “Despite the volume of the Defendants’ arguments, we find no more substance in them than the district court found in their infomercials,” wrote U.S. Court of Appeals First Circuit Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson. The appellate court rejected all the ...

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has permanently shut down the illegal operations of a firm that placed bogus charges on the telephone bills of thousands of small businesses and consumers for Internet-related services they never agreed to buy. The court has barred the defendants from charging consumers’ telephone bills and barred them from telemarketing unless they get prior approval from the FTC and the court. It also ordered third parties through which charges were placed, including local exchange telephone companies, or LECs, to return money in escrow to consumers, and ordered the defendants to pay nearly $38 million in restitution for consumers. In January 2010 the FTC sued Inc21, charging that the company hired offshore telemarketers to call prospective clients to sell its Web-based services. The defendants then used LECs to place charges, usually between $12.95 and $39.95 per month, for those services on the phone bills of consumers and busi...

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking public comments on an application by Agilent Technologies, Inc. to modify the final FTC Order settling charges that Agilent’s acquisition of Varian, Inc. would reduce competition in the market for high-performance scientific measuring instruments such as gas chromatographs. A public version of the application can be found on the FTC’s website at http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0910135/index.shtm. The final Order, which was issued on July 2, 2010, required Agilent to sell Varian’s scientific measuring instrument business to Bruker Corporation. As part of that divestiture agreement, the parties entered into a transition services agreement under which former Varian employees are working for Bruker to assemble the instruments at a facility in Melbourne, Australia. Agilent now seeks to alter some of the terms of the transition services agreement relating to the working requirements of the employees assembling the devices. Details of the proposed modi...

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a final order settling charges that U-Haul and its parent company invited its main competitor to fix prices on truck rentals. The settlement order against U-Haul and its parent company AMERCO bars them from colluding or inviting collusion. The FTC vote approving the final order was 5-0. (FTC File No. 081-0157; the staff contact is Dana Abrahamson, Bureau of Competition, 202-326-2906. See press release dated June 9, 2010 at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/06/uhaul.shtm.) Copies of the documents mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s website at http://www.ftc.gov and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP. MEDIA CONTACT: Office of Public Affairs 202-326-2180 (FYI 30.2010.wpd)

Settlement Bars Illegal Anti-competitive Tactics U-Haul International, Inc. and its parent company today settled Federal Trade Commission charges that they violated the FTC Act by inviting U-Haul’s closest competitor, Avis Budget Group, Inc., to collude on prices for truck rentals. U-Haul and Budget control more than 70 percent of the “do-it-yourself” one-way truck rental business in the United States. If U-Haul had succeeded in its price-fixing plan, the two companies could have imposed higher prices on truck-rental consumers, according to the FTC. “It’s a bedrock principle that you can’t conspire with your competitors to fix prices – and shouldn’t even try. Consumers deserve better. The order announced today will ensure that U-Haul will not try it again,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.

The Federal Trade Commission today sued Intel Corp., the world’s leading computer chip maker, charging that the company has illegally used its dominant market position for a decade to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly. In its complaint, the FTC alleges that Intel has waged a systematic campaign to shut out rivals’ competing microchips by cutting off their access to the marketplace. In the process, Intel deprived consumers of choice and innovation in the microchips that comprise the computers’ central processing unit, or CPU. These chips are critical components that often are referred to as the “brains” of a computer.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act. The notice incorporates several changes to the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers. The Guides were last updated in 1980.

An Administrative Law Judge has dismissed a Federal Trade Commission administrative complaint alleging that the respondents were responsible for the deceptive advertising of an herbal remedy that was falsely advertised as a cure for cancer. Although Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell did not evaluate the allegation in the complaint that deceptive and false claims were made about the herbal remedy RAAX11, he wrote that complaint counsel had failed to prove those claims were made by the respondents named in the complaint – the company Gemtronics, Inc., or its officer, William H. Isely. Specifically, Judge Chappell found that complaint counsel had failed to prove that Gemtronics or Isely had a role in creating or circulating the Internet advertisements for RAAX11that were alleged to be deceptive.

Today the Federal Trade Commission is hosting a public event on consumer protection issues in debt collection proceedings. This is the second in a series of FTC roundtable discussions on these topics. WHAT: “Protecting Consumers in Debt Collection Arbitration and Litigation: A Roundtable Discussion” WHEN: September 30, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registration at 8 a.m.; Seating limited WHERE: San Francisco State University Downtown Campus 835 Market Street, Rooms 675 and 676 San Francisco, CA 94132 A live webcast, agenda, and information about the participants are available at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/debtcollectround/index.shtm .

The Federal Trade Commission has joined the U.S. Department of Justice in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer, and Ulrich LPA, et al., No. 08-1200 (U.S. S. Ct.). This case concerns whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s (FDCPA) “bona fide error” defense applies not just to procedural or clerical errors, but also to errors of law. The amicus brief, which is available on the FTC’s Web site as a link to this press release, urges the Supreme Court to reverse the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit held that the bona fide error defense could apply to errors of law, but the amicus brief argues that the court’s holding is not consistent with the wording or the legislative history of the FDCPA.

Antitrust Agencies Explore Possible Update to Guidelines to Account for Legal and Economic Developments The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today that they will solicit public comment and hold joint public workshops to explore the possibility of updating the Horizontal Merger Guidelines that are used by both agencies to evaluate the potential competitive effects of mergers and acquisitions. The goal of the workshops will be to determine whether the Horizontal Merger Guidelines accurately reflect the current practice of merger review at the FTC and DOJ, as well as to take into account legal and economic developments that have occurred since the last significant Guidelines revision in 1992.

An international Internet payday lending operation will pay $1 million to settle Federal Trade Commission and State of Nevada charges that it failed to disclose key loan terms and used unlawful debt collection tactics. The defendants operated from the United Kingdom and targeted consumers in the United States, who were misled into believing that the defendants operated from Nevada. According to a complaint filed by the FTC and Nevada in 2008, the defendants told consumers that the loans had to be repaid by their next payday with a fee ranging from $35 to $80, or the loans would be extended automatically for an extra fee debited from consumers’ bank accounts until the loans were repaid.

The Federal Trade Commission today announced two new law enforcement actions in a continuing crackdown on mortgage foreclosure rescue and loan modification scams, bringing to 22 the number of these cases the Commission has filed since the housing crisis began. The FTC also announced developments in similar pending mortgage-related actions. "Today’s challenging economy presents an opportunity for con artists who prey upon financially distressed consumers. The Federal Trade Commission and our state and federal partners will continue to bring law enforcement actions to stop this insidious fraud,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said. “If you’re worried about keeping your home, avoid any company that asks for a large fee in advance, guarantees that they’ll stop a foreclosure or modify a loan, or tells you to stop paying your mortgage company and to pay them instead.”