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Every year the FTC brings hundreds of cases against individuals and companies for violating consumer protection and competition laws that the agency enforces. These cases can involve fraud, scams, identity theft, false advertising, privacy violations, anti-competitive behavior and more. The Legal Library has detailed information about cases we have brought in federal court or through our internal administrative process, called an adjudicative proceeding.
The marketers of a dietary supplement called Synovia agreed to settle FTC charges by halting the deceptive tactics they allegedly used to mislead consumers into thinking Synovia could treat arthritis and alleviate joint pain. In December 2020, the Commission announced it was returning almost $775,000 to consumers who both the deceptively marketed product.
The Federal Trade Commission has taken actionagainst a debt collection company that allegedly placed bogus or highly questionable debts onto consumers’ credit reports to coerce them to pay the debts. Under a settlement with the FTC, the company, Midwest Recovery Systems (Midwest Recovery), is prohibited from the practice, known as “debt parking,” and required to delete the debts it previously reported to credit reporting agencies. The FTC allegedthat Midwest Recovery collected more than $24 million from consumers on such debts, largely by debt parking.
CoreLogic, Inc. agreed to settle FTC charges that its proposed $661 million acquisition of DataQuick Information Systems, Inc. from TPG VI Ontario 1 AIV L.P. would likely substantially lessen competition in the market for national assessor and recorder bulk data. The FTC’s proposed settlement order requires CoreLogic to license to Renwood RealtyTrac national assessor and recorder bulk data as well as several ancillary data sets that DataQuick provides to its customers. The order allows RealtyTrac to offer customers the data and services that DataQuick now offers and to become an effective competitor in the market.
In November 2020, at the FTC’s request, a federal court in Ohio issued a temporary restraining order against 25 counterfeit websites that allegedly have been playing on consumers’ COVID-19 pandemic fears to trick them into paying for Clorox and Lysol products that the defendants never deliver.
In May 2021, The FTC announced a law enforcement action to halt deceptive health and efficacy claims in the growing market for cannabidiol (CBD) products. In the action—the first since the Commission announced a crackdown on such false claims last December—Scottsdale, Arizona-based Kushly Industries LLC (Kushly) and the company’s sole officer Cody Alt agreed not to make false or unsupported claims or falsely claim that scientific evidence exists to back them up. They also paid the FTC more than $30,000 in consumer redress.
