FTC Looking for Credit Repair Marketers

Promising to clean up credit reports or advertising credit repair services could land you in hot water with the FTC. The FTC is pursuing a group of companies and two individuals for contempt of court after they violated the court order that resolved Article 5 charges of deceptive marketing for credit repair services. In their original 2010 court order, Sam Tarad Sky and Kurt Streyfeller agreed to be required to follow the Credit Repair Organizations Act. This included no longer lying to credit agencies about consumers, misleading consumers to get them to purchase services, not taking payment before providing services, and giving notice to consumers about their ability to cancel the contract. They also agreed under the FTC Act to stop misrepresenting their ability to improve consumer’s credit reports, consumer’s possibility of paying less then what they owe to creditors, and how much the services will cost the consumer. Their $2,492,000 fine was suspended subject to their truthfulness in reporting their assets and the value of those assets. Now the FTC is seeking to have them banned from selling credit repair and debt relief services, government related goods as well as force them to compensate former customers.