Tag: deceptive/misleading conduct

FleetCor and its CEO will pay $100 million to settle a FTC administrative action alleging that the company charged its customers, who overwhelmingly are small businesses, undisclosed fees in connection with their use of fuel cards that FleetCor falsely promised businesses would save them money.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Amazon.com, Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime.

In a complaint filed today, the FTC charges that Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime. Specifically, Amazon used manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as “dark patterns” to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions.

Amazon also knowingly complicated the cancellation process for Prime subscribers who sought to end their membership. The primary purpose of its Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but to stop them. Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would’ve made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line. 

The FTC, joined by Utah and California, by and through Los Angeles County Counsel, today sued Hims & Hers alleging that the telehealth provider shared consumers’ sensitive health information about medical conditions with third-party advertising platforms despite claiming its services maintain consumers’ privacy and deceives users about its billing and cancellation practices.

The FTC will require Cox Media Group, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works to pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations they deceived customers by falsely claiming to offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers’ smart devices and that consumers had opted into such targeting

The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Connecticut are taking action against auto dealer Manchester City Nissan (MCN), along with its owner and a number of key employees, for systematically deceiving consumers about the price of certified used cars, add-ons, and government fees.

The complaint alleges that the dealership, in addition to deceiving consumers, regularly charges them junk fees for certification, add-on products, and government charges without the consumers’ consent, sometimes costing them thousands of dollars in unwanted and unauthorized charges.

Doxo will pay $2.1 million to settle FTC allegations that the company and two of its co-founders used misleading search ads to impersonate consumers’ billers and misled consumers about millions of dollars in fees they tacked on to consumers’ bills.

At the request of the FTC, a federal court has temporarily halted a bogus credit repair scheme run by a sprawling network of 17 related companies and their principals. 

Ticket broker Elite Events and its operators will pay $300,000 in civil penalties to resolve FTC allegations that the firm purchased millions of dollars’ worth of tickets to high-demand events by illegally circumventing measures designed to limit the number of tickets that can be purchased to a single event.

In December 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it took action to stop a scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars out of consumers burdened with student loan debt by pretending to be affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education in violation of the FTC’s Impersonation Rule, collecting illegal advance fees, and making other deceptive claims.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada entered a temporary restraining order on November 22, 2024 and a preliminary injunction against corporate defendant Superior Servicing on December 6, 2024. 

The FTC filed an amended complaint adding corporate defendants Sunrise Solutions USA LLC, Alumni Advantage LLC, Student Processing Center Group LLC, SPCTWO LLC, Accredit LLC and individual defendants Eric Caldwell and David Hernandez.

In September 2025, the FTC announced that Caldwell and Hernandez will be permanently banned from the debt relief industry and will be required to turn over their assets to resolve FTC charges that they helped operate an illegal student loan debt-relief operation. Additionally, Caldwell will be banned from the telemarketing industry, and Hernandez will be prohibited from violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule.

In February 2026, a federal judge entered an order against Dennise Merdjanian, an operator of the scheme, that permanently banned her from the debt relief industry and telemarketing following a settlement with the FTC.

In June 2026, a federal judge entered a default order against corporate defendants Superior Servicing LLC, Sunrise Solutions USA LLC, Alumni Advantage LLC, Student Processing Center Group LLC, SPCTWO LLC and Accredit LLC. resolving litigation against the remaining defendants in the case.