Tag: dual enforcement/DOJ

On January 2, 2024, the Department of Justice on referral from the FTC filed a complaint alleging that California-based lead generator Response Tree LLC and its president, Derek Thomas Doherty operated more than 50 websites designed to trick consumers into providing their personal information for supposed mortgage refinancing loans and other services. These telemarketing campaigns, which made robocalls and calls to numbers on the DNC Registry, were illegal, as the telemarketers did not have consumers’ consent to be called.

Under a proposed order settling the FTC’s charges, Response Tree and Derek Thomas Doherty will be banned from making or assisting anyone else in making robocalls or calls to phone numbers on the FTC’s Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.

The FTC sued VoIP service provider VoIP Terminator, Inc., a related company, and the firms’ owner for assisting and facilitating the transmission of millions of illegal prerecorded telemarketing robocalls, including those they knew or should have known were scams, to consumers nationwide. Many of the calls originated overseas, and related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the defendants allegedly failing to act as a gatekeeper to stop them from entering the country. The proposed consent order bars the defendants from the allegedly illegal conduct.