The Federal Trade Commission recently filed a sealed complaint against Regency Financial Services, Ivan Levy; AKA Fidelity Holdings, Levy Fidelity Holdings, Ivan Levy Regency Holdings, BJI Enterprises. The FTC alleges the following in the complaint: “Since at least 2009, Regency, acting primarily through co-defendant Ivan Levy, has perpetrated a vehicle loan assistance relief services scam. Regency preys on consumers who ... Read More »

WASHINGTON, DC – Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP); Benjamin B. Wagner, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California; and Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General for the State of California today announced that Ray Jan Kornfeld, 59, of Las Vegas, Nev., was sentenced on February 19, 2015, to five years in federal ... Read More »

Two new defendants have been named in a Federal Trade Commission case against a phony debt relief and credit repair scheme that allegedly deceived consumers about non-existent federal programs to pay off their bills and fix poor credit. – Source The case was originally brought in August 2014 against the unnamed operators of the scam, which operated under the names ... Read More »

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Continental Finance Company LLC, a subprime credit card company based in Delaware, to refund an estimated $2.7 million to approximately 98,000 consumers who were charged illegal credit card fees. The agency found that the company’s “fee-harvester” subprime credit cards misrepresented certain fees and hit consumers with illegal charges. The order also requires ... Read More »

Two defendants who participated in an alleged multi-million dollar telemarketing fraud that targeted U.S. seniors and withdrew money from their accounts without authorization have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges. The settlement orders bar them from using remotely created checks drawn on consumers’ bank accounts, require them to obtain consumers’ consent before debiting their accounts, and prohibit them from ... Read More »

Staff of the Federal Trade Commission has sent letters warning 20 manufacturers and marketers of dog waste bags that their “biodegradable,” “compostable,” and other environmental claims may be deceptive. The letters, which the staff sent after examining the companies’ environmental, or “green,” claims on their websites and in other media, provide examples of potentially deceptive statements regarding the bags’ biodegradability ... Read More »

Loyal readers know I typically focus on consumer debt related issues but this recent marketing piece sent to my dead mother made my blood boil. The outside of the marketing piece clearly appears to spoof an official government mailer. I think it tries very hard to trick recipients into thinking this is critical government mail, maybe from the Internal Revenue ... Read More »

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal court has shut down Butterfly Labs, a Missouri-based company that allegedly deceptively marketed specialized computers designed to produce Bitcoins, a payment system sometimes referred to as “virtual currency.” The FTC’s complaint against the company and its corporate officers alleges that Butterfly Labs charged consumers thousands of dollars for its Bitcoin ... Read More »

At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a U.S. district court in Missouri has temporarily halted an online payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked consumers out of tens of millions of dollars by trapping them into loans they never authorized and then using the supposed “loans” as a pretext to take money from their bank accounts. The court imposed a temporary ... Read More »

I just got this fax from my alleged H.R. Department, who is me. But you just know someone, somewhere is going to fall for this crap. This is clearly landing on the fax machines around the country and it appears to just be a pitch for some travel voucher and not an actual trip. You know you’ve got to worry ... Read More »

by Paul Kiel ProPublica, Aug. 15, 2014, 9 a.m. USA Discounters, a retail company that caters to service members, has agreed to refund $350,000 collected as part of what federal regulators termed a “fee scam.” The company also agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty to settle an inquiry by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over a $5 fee charged to ... Read More »

The following information appears as a scam warning for consumers to avoid. A reader sent in the following email and wanted people to watch out for it. The email pretends to be from E-ZPass but is actually sent from an email address in Russia, automania-group.ru. If you get an email like this, delete it, do not click on the link. ... Read More »

The final defendant charged by the Federal Trade Commission in a business opportunity scheme that he falsely claimed would enable consumers to earn a significant income by affiliate marketing with websites of well-known companies such as Prada, Sony, Louis Vuitton, and Verizon has agreed to settle. Under the settlement, Benjamin Moskel, a former officer in the corporation, The Online Entrepreneur, ... Read More »