By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com
March 20, 2007
A U.S. District Court in Illinois has entered a final judgment against several Canadian cross-border fraudsters, permanently banning their deceptive telemarketing pitches and requiring them to pay $8.1 million.
The Federal Trade Commission says that's how much they netted from their sale of non-existent advance-fee Visa and MasterCard credit cards to U.S. consumers.
The FTC brought the case in November 2004 as part of a major multi-jurisdictional cross-border fraud law enforcement initiative. Two defendants, Mishele Wells and her company Simax Corp., settled the Commission's charges in April 2006. The action announced this week ends the FTC's litigation against the remaining defendants.
The defendants are accused of promising consumers who paid a fee ranging from $159 to $236 would receive a low-interest rate, high-credit limit, and no-annual-fee MasterCard or Visa card. The Commission charged that since August 1999, the defendants had operated boiler rooms in Toronto, targeting U.S. consumers with no credit or poor credit histories.
After paying for the promised cards, however, consumers did not receive them. Instead, they got packages containing coupons and discounts for travel, recreation, automobile services, medical plans, satellite service, and cellular telephones.
The original complaint, filed on November 8, 2004, named 120194 Canada Limited, d/b/a Veritech Communications, Veritech Communication Services, Veritech, Prime One Benefits, Prime One Financial, Prime One, First National Credit Service, and U.S. National Credit; Prime One Financial Group, Inc., d/b/a Prime One Benefits, Prime One Financial, Prime One, First National Credit Service, and U.S. National Credit, Marketing Directives, Inc.
The complaint also alleged that the group of companies was owned and operated by individual defendants Paul Price and Elissa R. Price, a/k/a Lisa Price and Lisa Wells. The U.S. District Court in Chicago entered a temporary restraining order against the defendants on November 8, 2004, and a stipulated preliminary injunction against them on December 10, 2004, halting their cross-border telemarketing activities.
