Tag: Franchises, Business Opportunities, and Investments

In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, the FTC alleged that Online Trading Academy made unsubstantiated mega-bucks promises about their purported investment training programs. According to the...

Etymologists – the word origin people – trace “franchise” back to a mash-up of French terms meaning both “forthright expression” and “membership.” Five hundred years later and those two concepts...

Last year the FTC and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection sued Nudge, LLC , and related companies and individuals, alleging they used bogus money-making claims to lure people into buying real...

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the FTC has released dozens of warning letters against people trying to make an illegal buck off the Coronavirus. More than a month in, it seems like a good...

The FTC is not the pen pal you want if you operate a multi-level marketing company but aren’t closely monitoring your distributors. In its latest round of warning letters, the FTC warns ten MLM...

Ads for health products often target Boomer Consumers, but those aren’t the only claims pitched to people looking toward retirement. An FTC action alleges a company called Online Trading Academy has...

The new year has just begun, but the FTC already has delivered its answer to the annual question: Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? The answer? If you’re a past defendant in...

In tribute to the baseball season that’s just ended, we’ll start this blog post about an alleged pyramid scheme and supposed miraculous dietary supplements with the words of the great Yogi Berra: “ It...

A savvy business person always wants to know the shape of things to come. We won’t make predictions but, based on the FTC’s case against multi-level marketer AdvoCare International , we will say this...

The name of the case is FTC v. Fat Giraffe Marketing Group , but the lawsuit has nothing to do with obesity, giraffes, or obese giraffes. OK, perhaps there are some similarities in the sense that the...

Steely Dan may be one of the best duos of the rock era. (Sorry, Donnie and Marie fans.) Their song “Hey Nineteen” reminds us to mention some FTC consumer protection developments that could be of...

Based on the promoters’ promises, it sounded like a tropical paradise: a luxury enclave called Sanctuary Belize featuring a championship golf course, a new airport with direct flights to the U.S., and...

One of the Utah-based defendants’ corporate names was Vision Solution Marketing, but you need to hear their sales pitch to get a sense of how they peddled their big-money “business coaching” services...

In the annals of film, Citizen Kane , The Godfather , and Casablanca are among our top picks. But don’t expect our list to include TBX-FREE, Eupepsia Thin, or Prolongz, dissolving strips of film the...

T he marketers behind a purported money-making promotion called Sellers Playbook appear to have skipped the chapter about complying with federal and state consumer protection laws. That’s the...

The Cubs are in Los Angeles and the White Sox have the day off, but there’s still a lot happening in Chicago today. The FTC’s workshop Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams is set to start at 1:00 PM...

When it came to Mobile Money Code’s “system,” money was mobile all right. It traveled in a one-way direction from consumers to the pockets of the principals behind the get-rich-quick venture. That’s...

It’s unfortunate, but it happens. First came cryptocurrency. Then came the cryptocurrency crooks. In the emerging cryptocurrency marketplace, what needs to be done to protect consumers from scams...

The company’s name is MOBE – pronounced Mōb, not Moby – but according to a lawsuit filed by the FTC , the defendants tell quite a fish story to the consumers they hook with money-making promises. The...

Vision Solution Marketing and related defendants pitch services to prospective entrepreneurs and people looking to supplement their income. Among the defendants’ products is business “coaching” that...