FTC Wraps Up Largest Fraud Crackdown in its History

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.Com

May 26, 2008

In the largest telemarketing fraud crackdown in history, authorities in the United States and Canada filed more than 180 criminal and civil actions against companies that allegedly used deceptive tactics to sell everything from extended car warranties to magazine subscriptions.

The legal action -- spearheaded by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under the code name "Operation Tele-PHONEY" -- targeted 13 companies that allegedly duped more than 500,000 consumers nationwide through deceptive telemarketing schemes.

Consumers lost more than $100 million in these companies' various schemes, the FTC said.

ConsumerAffairs.com has received scores of complaints about one of the telemarketing companies named in last week's crackdown -- Publishers Business Services, which operates out of an office in Henderson, Nevada.

That company allegedly used deceptive and intimidating tactics to sell magazine subscriptions, according to the FTC.

"These defendants allegedly disguise their sales pitch as a survey, at the end of which they offer 'free' or low-cost magazine subscriptions,'" the FTC said in a written statement. "They send a bill weeks later, stating that consumers agreed to pay several hundred dollars for the subscriptions"

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