Government Enforcement Actions

December 4, 2014

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan joined with the attorneys general of 44 states and the District of Columbia to announce that Sirius XM Radio Inc. agreed to pay $3.8M and provide restitution to eligible consumers to resolve claims that the satellite radio company engaged in misleading advertising and billing practices. The states’ investigation focused on consumer complaints involving: difficulty canceling contracts, cancellation requests that were not honored, misrepresentations that the consumer’s Sirius XM service would be canceled and not renewed, contracts that were automatically renewed without consumers’ notice or consent, unauthorized fees, higher and unanticipated rates after a low introductory rate, and Sirius XM failing to provide timely refunds. IL

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

December 3, 2014

The CFTC ordered Christopher A. Engel and Pinnacle Forex Group LLC, both of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, jointly to pay a $414,000 civil monetary penalty and restitution totaling $405,378 to defrauded customers for committing fraud and misappropriation in connection with operating a commodity pool that traded leveraged or margined off-exchange foreign currency contracts.  CFTC

December 2, 2014

Durable medical equipment supplier Regional Home Care, Inc., which does business as North Atlantic Medical Services, will pay a total of $852,378 to federal and state authorities for its violation of the False Claims Act by billing Medicare and Medicaid for unlicensed services for the treatment of respiratory ailments, such as oxygen deficiency and sleep apnea. MA

November 26, 2014

The CFTC has ordered Dominick Anthony Cognata, who was a registered COMEX floor broker, to pay a $140,000 civil monetary penalty for failing to comply with a CFTC subpoena and to cease and desist from further violations of CFTC recordkeeping requirements.  CFTC

November 25, 2014

The CFTC announced the filing of a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, charging Defendant Thomas Gillons of Napa County, California, with fraud and acting as a Futures Commission Merchant without being registered.  CFTC

November 24, 2014

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced the indictment of three pharmacies and seven individuals for allegedly defrauding Medicaid of over $5M by allegedly paying customers for prescriptions obtained from a local doctor and then billing Medicaid for the drugs even though they were never dispensed. The corporate defendants include Perfect Gift US, Inc., d/b/a Central Pharmacy, Princess RX, Inc., d/b/a Hastings Drug Corp., and Bright RX, Inc., d/b/a Buffalo Drugs. NY

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 20, 2014

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley announced a settlement with AT&T to resolve allegations that hundreds of AT&T’s California facilities unlawfully disposed of hazardous waste and material over a nine-year period. As part of the settlement, AT&T will pay $23.8M million and spend an additional $28M over the next five years to implement the enhanced environmental compliance measures required by the settlement. CA

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