Fighting phantom phone fees
A sure way to see smoke coming out of consumers’ ears: Put charges on their phone bills for services they never ordered and didn’t authorize. In a lawsuit just filed against Montana-based American eVoice, Steven Sann, and others, that’s what the FTC says is going on.
Call a time-out before investing in "coaching"
Coaching isn’t just about clipboards, lanyards, and saying “Listen up” a lot. What do winning coaches bring to a team? Leadership, personal attention, and a proven system for success. The people who spent more than $100 million on “coaching” services sold by Ivy Capital and related companies thought that's what they were buying. But according to an FTC lawsuit filed against dozens of defendants — and a settlement with all but five of them — that’s not what Ivy
FTC rules POM ads were false and deceptive
The Federal Trade Commission has ruled that the marketers of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and POMx supplements engaged in false and deceptive advertising in touting their products. We’re still working our way through the 53-page decision — stop by for more in the next few days — but here are some need-to-know nuggets.
Delete your heart out
As we mentioned yesterday, it’s the small business scam du jour. What looks like an email from the FTC notifying a company about a pending complaint is really a phishing attempt from a con artist. Here are four steps you can take to help protect your business.
Scammers target businesses with fake emails
A favorite trick for rip-off artists is to pretend to represent a trustworthy and respected organization. Today — and we mean that literally — we’re hearing from businesses that have received email exploiting the good name of the Federal Trade Commission. We don’t want you to lose money or valuable information to a scam artist sending a phony message claiming you’re a target of the FTC.
