NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against three companies that allegedly served as fronts for scams, including fraudulent promises to help customers earn $10,000 a month from lucrative Internet businesses.
"Our principal goal is to shut down the companies and get whatever money we can back in the hands of consumers," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a teleconference on Wednesday.
But Vladeck admitted that it was going to hard to recover the stolen money, because in most cases the scammers have already spent it.
The FTC said Wednesday that it ordered an entity that called itself Ivy Capital Inc. to stop taking money from customers, and it also sued National Sales Group and Business Recovery Services for alleged rip-offs.
"We asked the court to stop [Ivy Capital] from taking advance fees for the duration of the case," said FTC spokesman Frank Dorman. "We don't have criminal authority. [But] we can shut them down and get them to stop what they're doing. If they do it again, they're subject to civil contempt."
Contact information for these so-called companies could not be found.
The FTC accused Ivy Capital in Nevada and 29 defendants of taking more than $40 million from people who paid thousands of dollars believing the company would help them develop their own Internet businesses and earn up to $10,000 per month.
The commission said consumers paid up to $20,000 for a business coaching program and related products and services, but got very little in return.
The FTC said that "Ivy Capital's telemarketers asked consumers how much credit they had on their credit cards and then talked them into using a substantial portion of their available credit to purchase a business coaching program. But the promised products and services were worthless."
Tom Bernard, a victim of Ivy Capital who lives in Florida, said he was laid off when he was lured by an e-mail that promised informational seminars to help him establish a Web-based retail business. He said he received a follow-up phone call from someone "who wanted to tell me about how I could make money online."
He said he agreed to participate in a series of "Webinars" and his credit card was charged $12,000 by Ivy Capital, even though he canceled after three sessions because he considered them useless.
The FTC sued National Sales Group in Illinois for advertising "nonexistent sales jobs" on Careerbuilder.com and other online job sites.
The authorities accused the company of overcharging customers for background checks and also charging monthly fees without their consent, defrauding customers of $8 million and generating more than 17,000 complaints to law enforcement agencies and online job boards.
Careerbuilder.com dropped the company from its site, the FTC said.
The FTC sued Business Recovery Services and a defendant named Brian Hessler in Arizona for the fraudulent telemarketing of services to "help consumers recover money they had lost to business opportunity and work-at-home operations." The FTC said this alleged scheme caused consumers to lose $1.5 million.
The FTC also said, in addition to these newly filed lawsuits, that it shut down seven other companies in ongoing cases involving the fleecing of customers. The FTC identified these companies as La Association Nacional de Trabajo, Darting Angel Pin Creations Inc., Global U.S. Resources, U.S. Work Alliance, Inc., Preferred Platinum Services Network, Abili-Staff and Entertainment Work.
Contact information for these companies was not available.
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