Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

FTC and 10 States Settle Charges with Remaining Defendants in Illegal Telemarketing Campaign

Courts FTC State Attorney General Telemarketing Sales Rule

Courts

On February 21, the FTC announced that, along with 10 state attorneys general, it has entered a Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction and Civil Penalty Judgment against defendants who were allegedly part of an illegal robocall campaign that ran from October 2011 through July 2012. According to the joint complaint filed by the FTC and the states in 2015, the campaign averaged approximately 12 to 15 million illegal sales calls a day asking consumers to complete a political research survey and then connecting them to a live telemarketer who sold cruise packages. The FTC’s 2015 press release noted that while “do-not-call and robocall rules do not prohibit political survey robocalls, the defendants’ robocalls violated federal law because they incorporated a sales pitch.” The 2017 settlement order imposed a $1.35 million fine, to be suspended after they pay $2,500 based on ability to pay, and bars the defendants from: (i) “initiating, or causing anyone else to initiate, any robocalls or helping anyone else make robocalls”; and (ii) “engaging in illegal telemarketing practices.” Certain other defendants reached settlements in 2015, which, in addition to imposing various civil money penalties, prohibited them also from engaging in abusive telemarketing practices.