The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit to halt a credit card interest-rate reduction scam that, the commission alleges, deceived hundreds of consumers struggling with credit card debt.
The commission alleges that the people charged in this case, who previously worked for a nearly identical telemarketing operation shut down by court order in 2016 at the request of the FTC, set up a new operation selling similar bogus credit-card interest-rate-reduction services within weeks of the court order shuttering the earlier operation.
Higher Goals Marketing, Sunshine Freedom Services, Brandun L. Anderson, Lea A. Brownell, Melissa M. Deese, Gerald D. Starr Jr., and Travis L. Teel have engaged in a telemarketing scheme that has deceived financially distressed consumers nationwide, according to the commission’s lawsuit.
These telemarketers allegedly received help in developing and carrying out the scheme from defendant Wayne T. Norris, who previously worked for the defendants in two other FTC cases involving the telemarketing of deceptive debt-relief services, 2016’s FTC v. Life Management Services of Orange County and 2012’s FTC v. Ambrosia Web Design.
The lawsuit alleges that Norris began working with Anderson to set up the Higher Goals Marketing scheme weeks after the court entered a temporary restraining order in the Life Management Services case. In this case, Norris is charged with violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule by helping the other defendants organize the telemarketing infrastructure they used to bombard consumers with illegal robocalls, putting a team of managers together to oversee the robocall operation, and helping to set up a shell company to collect illegal up-front fees from consumers.
The lawsuit charges that the other defendants used illegal robocalls to contact consumers and pitch their fake debt-relief services. They guaranteed that consumers would lower their credit card interest rates and would save thousands of dollars in interest payments. Actually, the lawsuit alleges, the scheme was rarely, if ever, able to obtain the promised results.
In some cases, the defendants would obtain new credit cards for consumers with low introductory teaser rates – but the promotional rates on these cards were only temporary and the defendants failed to disclose that consumers would need to pay a fee to transfer their existing credit card balances to the new cards.
The defendants, other than Norris, allegedly violated the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule by misrepresenting that they could reduce credit card interest rates and save consumers money, as well as by failing to disclose that consumers could end up paying additional bank fees totaling 1 to 3 percent of their credit card debt.
They’re charged with additional TSR violations for collecting illegal up-front fees, calling consumers whose numbers are on the National Do Not Call Registry, making illegal robocalls, and failing to pay required fees to access the Do Not Call Registry.
In addition to seeking an order to stop the defendants’ allegedly illegal conduct, the commission also is asking for the appointment of a receiver to take control of companies and an asset freeze to preserve funds for potential consumer refunds.
