FTC Enforcement

December 5, 2014

The settlement involving Google unfairly billing for in-app purchases receives final approval. The order resolves allegations that Google billed consumers millions of dollars for charges incurred by children without consent from account holders. When Google first introduced in-app charges to the Google Play store in 2011, the FTC’s complaint alleged, Google billed for such charges without any password requirement or other method to obtain account holder authorization. FTC

December 3, 2014

PaymentsMD, LLC settled FTC charges alleging they misled thousands of consumers who signed up for an online billing portal by failing to adequately inform them that the company would seek highly detailed medical information from pharmacies, medical labs and insurance companies. The FTC alleges the companies used the sign-up process for a “Patient Portal” — where consumers could view their billing history — as a pathway to deceptively seek consumers’ consent to obtain detailed medical information about the consumers to create patient profiles. FTC

November 20, 2014

Consumer Collection Advocates, Corp. agreed to stop operating an advance fee recovery scheme for the duration of the on-going litigation with the FTC. The FTC seeks to permanently stop the operation, which in the past year took close to $1.3 million from consumers, many of them elderly people who had lost money to timeshare resale and precious metal investment frauds. According to the FTC’s complaint, telemarketers for the company called consumers and falsely guaranteed that, for an up-front fee, typically 20 percent of the amount they lost, the defendants would recover substantial amounts of money for them – 60 percent or more – within 30 to 180 days. The FTC alleges few, if any, consumers received any money. FTC

November 19, 2014

One Technologies group settles with the FTC for running an online scheme that allegedly lured consumers with “free” access to their credit scores and then billed them a recurring fee of nearly $30 dollars for a credit monitoring program they never ordered. The credit monitoring programs, MyCreditHealth and ScoreSense, were marketed through at least 50 websites, including FreeScore360.com, FreeScoreOnline.com and ScoreSense.com. According to the FTC, they bought advertising on search engines such as Google and Bing so that ads for their websites appeared near the top of search results when consumers looked for terms such as “free credit report.” The FTC alleges the defendants failed to clearly disclose that consumers who accessed their credit score through their websites would be enrolled in a credit monitoring program and incur monthly charges until they called the defendants to cancel. FTC

November 17, 2014

TRUSTe, Inc., a major provider of privacy certifications for online businesses, has agreed to settle FTC charges that it deceived consumers about its recertification program for company’s privacy practices, as well as perpetuated its misrepresentation as a non-profit entity. The FTC alleges that from 2006 until January 2013, TRUSTe failed to conduct annual recertifications of companies holding TRUSTe privacy seals in over 1,000 incidences, despite providing information on its website that companies holding TRUSTe Certified Privacy Seals receive recertification every year. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said “TRUSTe promised to hold companies accountable for protecting consumer privacy, but it fell short of that pledge.” FTC

November 10, 2014

Norm Thompson Outfitters. Inc., and Wacoal America, Inc. agreed to pay to pay $230,000 and $1.3 million, respectively, to settle charges that their marketing claims for their caffeine-infused products were false and not substantiated by scientific evidence.  In settling the charges, the companies are banned from claiming that any garment that contains any drug or cosmetic causes substantial weight or fat loss or a substantial reduction in body size. The companies also are prohibited from making claims that any drug or cosmetic reduces or eliminates cellulite or reduces body fat, unless they are not misleading and can be substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence.  FTC

November 6, 2014

MPHJ Technology Investments, LLC, and its law firm agreed to settle charges that they used deceptive sales claims and phony legal threats in letters that accused thousands of small businesses around the United States of patent infringement.  According to the FTC,  the company bought patents relating to network computer scanning technology, and then told thousands of small businesses that they were likely infringing the patents and should purchase a license.  In more than 9,000 letters sent under the names of numerous MPHJ subsidiaries falsely represented that many other companies had already agreed to pay thousands of dollars for licenses.  FTC

October 30, 2014

FTC charges Gerber Products Co., also doing business as Nestlé Nutrition, with deceptively advertising that feeding its Good Start Gentle formula to infants with a family history of allergies prevents or reduces the risk that they will develop allergies.  The FTC also alleges that Gerber has falsely advertised Good Start Gentle’s health claims as FDA-approved. The FTC is seeking to prohibit Gerber from making the alleged false and unsubstantiated allergy-prevention claims.  FTC

October 29, 2014

JDI Dating Ltd., an England-based company, and its owner William Mark Thomas, agreed to settle charges alleging the company used fake, computer-generated profiles  to trick users into upgrading to paid memberships and charging these members a recurring monthly fee without their consent.  The settlement prohibits the defendants from misrepresenting material facts about any product or service and requires that, before obtaining consumers’ billing information for a product with a negative-option feature, the defendants clearly disclose the name of the seller or provider, a product description and its cost, the length of any trial period, the fact that charges will continue unless the consumer cancels, the deadline for canceling, and the mechanism to stop recurring charges. The order also requires the defendants to pay $616,165 in redress.  FTC

October 28, 2014

FTC charges AT&T Mobility, LLC with misleading millions of its smartphone customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds, in some cases by nearly 90 percent.  The FTC’s complaint alleges that the company failed to adequately disclose to its customers on unlimited data plans that, if they reach a certain amount of data use in a given billing cycle, AT&T reduces – or “throttles” – their data speeds to the point that many common mobile phone applications – like web browsing, GPS navigation and watching streaming video –  become difficult or nearly impossible to use.  FTC