FTC Settles Two Bogus Tech Scams, Discovers Debt Relief Scheme

Last year, as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to protect consumers from online scams, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed a series of complaints against 14 corporate defendants and 17 individual defendants in six different legal filings, charging them with operating bogus tech support scams. The FTC announced in an October 2012 press conference that, at the Commission's request, a federal judge had issued restraining orders and frozen the assets of more than two dozen companies and individuals. The defendants were charged with violating the FTC Act, which bars unfair and deceptive commercial practices, as well as the Telemarketing Sales Rule and with illegally calling numbers on the Do Not Call Registry. "The tech support scam artists we are talking about today have taken scareware to a whole other level of virtual mayhem," said former FTC chairman, Jon Leibowitz, in a statement.