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The Federal Trade Commission took action under the FTC Act and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act (OARFPA), suing Michael J. Connors and companies he controls for deceptively marketing their Smoke Away products as able to eliminate consumers’ nicotine addiction and enable them to quit smoking quickly, easily, and permanently. The case is the FTC’s first smoking cessation product challenge under OARFPA, and its first alleging the deceptive use of testimonials to sell a supposed addition-treatment product.

The proposed stipulated order settling the Commission’s complaint permanently bans Connors—who settled a 2005 FTC complaint regarding Smoke Away—and his companies from marketing or selling any substance use disorder treatment product or service, including any smoking cessation product or service.

The Federal Trade Commission today sued Walmart for allowing its money transfer services to be used by fraudsters, who fleeced consumers out of hundreds of millions of dollars. In its lawsuit, the FTC alleges that for years, the company turned a blind eye while scammers took advantage of its failure to properly secure the money transfer services offered at Walmart stores. The company did not properly train its employees, failed to warn customers, and used procedures that allowed fraudsters to cash out at its stores, according to the FTC’s complaint. The FTC is asking the court to order Walmart to return money to consumers and to impose civil penalties for Walmart’s violations.

Walmart will pay $10 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it turned a blind eye to scammers who used its in-store money transfer services to take hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. consumers. 

The Federal Trade Commission alleged Elite IT Partners, Inc. and its founder, President and CEO James Martinos settled FTC allegations that they tricked consumers into believing their computers were infected with viruses in order to sell them costly computer repair services.