The Federal Trade Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Securities and Exchange Commission,
and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, have joined 10 state
attorneys general and 11other state and local law enforcement agencies
to target cyberscams plaguing the Internet. Today they announced
19 civil and criminal law enforcement actions against scammers who
have bilked tens of thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars.
"Scams on the Internet spread very quickly," said J. Howard
Beales, III, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
"That's why the FTC and our partners are moving aggressively
to shut these schemes down."
The FTC asked a U.S. district court judge to shut down an operation
that used spam and Internet Web sites to advertise an envelope stuffing
work-at-home "opportunity." According to the FTC, in exchange
for $40, the defendants promised to provide consumers with sales
letters and pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes and consumers would
earn two dollars for every envelope they stuffed. Consumers who
sent their money didn't receive envelopes. If they received anything
- and many didn't - they got materials urging them to solicit self-addressed
envelopes from third parties and forward them to the defendants.
The FTC told the court that the "Stuffing for Cash" defendants
likely cheated tens of thousands of consumers out of more than $2
million in the last year. At the request of the FTC, a U.S. district
court judge prohibited the defendants from engaging in further deceptive
practices and froze their assets, pending trial.
In another FTC case, an operator used the Internet to advertise
his "discount" Web hosting services - such as domain name
registry, Web page design, and technical support - for monthly service
fees of $10 to $15. Consumers provided credit card numbers so they
could be billed. The FTC alleged that the defendant, Brian Kruchten,
doing business as Page Creators, crammed additional unauthorized
charges onto consumers' credit cards for supposed "excess bandwidth"
use. At the FTC's request, a district court froze the defendant's
assets and appointed a receiver, pending trial.
The defendant and the receiver later agreed to shut down the defendant's
Web hosting business.
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