Tag: Bureau of Consumer Protection

In January 2025, the FTC sued Florida-based Evoke Wellness, LLC and Evoke Health Care Management and their officers Jonathan Mosley and James Hull for using a combination of deceptive Google search ads and telemarketing to masquerade as other substance use disorder treatment providers. The FTC announced the settlement of the case in June 2025, with the defendants being barred from the deceptive conduct and agreeing to pay a $1.9 million civil penalty.

In July 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it stopped the operators of a scheme that it says tricked financially strapped consumers seeking student loan relief into paying hundreds of dollars in junk fees. The operators often targeted Spanish-speaking consumers in Puerto Rico, pretended to be affiliated with the Department of Education and its loan servicers, and made false promises of low, permanently fixed monthly payments and loan forgiveness.

A federal court temporarily halted the scheme and froze its assets at the request of the FTC.

In May 2025, the FTC announced that the operators of the scam have agreed to be permanently banned from the debt relief industry and to turn over their assets to resolve allegations that they misled consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Nevada are taking action to stop a wide-ranging investment training and business venture scam that has bilked consumers out of more than $1.2 billion. According to the complaint filed by the FTC and the Nevada Attorney General, the scam currently operates as IYOVIA and has also used the brand names IM Mastery Academy, iMarketsLive, and IM Academy (collectively, “IML”).

The complaint alleges the company and its operators use false or baseless earning claims to entice consumers to purchase training on financial topics. They have used similar claims to persuade consumers to buy into IML’s multi-level-marketing business venture, which involves marketing IML’s training services to others. It also alleges that that IML deliberately focused on marketing to young people, including through posts to college social media pages.

Case settles charges that GoDaddy misled customers about the extent of its data security protections and failed to secure its website hosting services against attacks that could harm its customers and visitors to the customers’ websites. 

As a result of a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, a federal court has temporarily halted the operations of a wide-ranging business opportunity and credit repair scam that has operated under the name “Growth Cave” since at least 2020.

The FTC’s complaint against the operation and its owners and officers, Lucas Lee-Tyson, Osmany Batte (also known as “Ozzie Blessed”), and Jordan Marksberry, alleges that the Growth Cave operation has taken approximately $50 million from consumers using false promises of huge income.

In May 2025, the FTC filed an amended complaint in this case, adding two defendants based on information the FTC learned after the original filing.

The amended complaint names LLT Research as a new defendant in the case and adds as a relief defendant Friendly Solar, Inc.

In June 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it took action to stop Prosperity Benefit Services, a student loan debt relief scheme that the agency says bilked more than $20.3 million from consumers seeking debt relief by pretending to be affiliated with the Department of Education. The FTC also charged that the company and its operators falsely claimed that they would take over consumers’ student loans to get them loan forgiveness that did not exist. In May 2025, the FTC announced that the operation and its owners are permanently banned from the debt relief industry and required to turn over all assets to resolve allegations that they misled consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission sued Uber Technologies, Inc. and Uber USA LLC (collectively, “Uber”) for alleged violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence
Act (“ROSCA”). Among other things, the complaint alleges that Uber charges consumers for its subscription service, Uber One, through a negative option feature but has failed to provide a simple mechanism to stop recurring charges. The complaint also alleges Uber has charged consumers without their consent in violation of the FTC Act and ROSCA. Further, the complaint alleges Uber falsely claims that consumers can cancel Uber One at “any time” with no additional fees.
 

The FTC filed a lawsuit today against Uber, alleging the rideshare and delivery company charged consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent, failed to deliver promised savings, and made it difficult for users to cancel the service despite its “cancel anytime” promises.