FTC Forces Scam Artist To Pay Up
The Federal Trade commission plans to award 1.6 million dollars to thousands of consumers who were scammed into paying money that they didn’t owe by con artists who utilized threats, harassment and lies to get them to pay up.
Back in 2003, the FTC sued three companies that were operating under the name National Check Control. They charged them with abusing and harassing consumers. This included falsely threatening criminal prosecution, collecting amounts that were not due, illegally communicating with third parties and other violations of federal laws.
Two years later the court ordered that their business be permanently halted and ordered them to pay back the consumers they had tricked The defendants, Check Investors Inc, Check Enforcement Inc, Jaredco, Inc and the companies owner Barry Sussman tried to appeal the case to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in vain.
One day after the appeals court did not agree to consider his appeal, Sussman suspiciously removed a number of coins valued at $335,000 from a bank safe deposit box. The federal court demanded that he turn over them to the FTC to pay back the consumers. Later, a federal jury convicted him of two felony counts, one for theft of government property and one for obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to forty one months in federal prison and is serving his sentence now.
The FTC was able to retrieve 1.6 million dollars to award the conned consumers. They plan to distribute the funds to 24,916 victims who lost a hundred dollars or more as a result of the scam. The consumers will begin to receive checks this month.
The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for preventing fraudulent, unfair, and deceptive practices that might do harm to consumers. In addition, they put out information to aid a consumer in seeing, stopping, and avoiding scams.
Mallory McGuinness works for a debt collection agency. She also composes articlesabout finance and business, consumer spending and debt collection.