FTC.........."Court Orders Centurion Defendants to Halt Illegal Cross-Border Telemarketing and Pay $10 Million in Consumer Redress"

FTC

"Thomas E. Richardson, the man behind Mid-South Distributors, advertised his greeting card display rack business opportunities in classified ads in local newspapers, claiming that purchasers could earn as much as $65,000 a year. Based in Florence, Alabama, he sold distributorships in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, and Kentucky. Richardson promised potential purchasers that for an investment of $8,500 or more, they would receive everything they needed to start a business: an initial inventory of greeting cards, display racks for the cards, and profitable locations where he would supposedly place the cards and racks for the purchaser.

According to the FTC, consumers never earned anything close to the income levels they were promised. The Commission alleged that in almost every case, consumers made less than $100 per month. The highest earning purchaser only returned $2,006 for the entire year by investing in 20 locations. In addition, Richardson often did not provide his customers with the promised number of locations for their display racks. Typically, the locations he did provide were not in high traffic areas, and resulted in few greeting card sales for the consumers. Also, the FTC accused Richardson of not providing any of the disclosures that are required by the Franchise Rule."

FTC Obtains Judgment of More Than $17 Million for Consumers

"John Stefanchik and his company, the Beringer corporation, have been ordered to pay over $17 million to consumers for falsely representing that the consumers would make easy money using the “Stefanchik Program” to buy and sell privately held promissory notes and mortgages. United States District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez granted the Federal Trade Commission’s motion for summary judgment and ruled that the defendants’ false claims violated federal law. The judge ordered a permanent halt to the false claims and ordered John Stefanchik and Beringer to pay restitution to consumers. "

FTC................Bogus Biller Settles FTC Charges