Marketers of “FREE” iPad settles with FTC

Yes, they are banned. But if they don't play nice, they may have public housing assigned to them...but without keys.

Exactly! Suspended judgements just encourage other scammers to do the same thing. =(

The world is changing and not necessarily for the better. Scammers, hackers, identity theives, phishers, etc. need to face criminal charges, not just monetary judgements that never get paid. When I read this part of the report, "The order also contains a monetary judgment of $356,950, which represents the full amount of money the defendants earned from the scam after paying their affiliates. The judgment is suspended due to their inability to pay." I was beyond infuriated. The judgement was based on the dollar amount they profited from the scam but they have no money to pay anything ?? Are you kidding me!!! The part about them having to cooperate with the FTC on any future investigations is a joke too. These guys got away with well over a half million dollars without even a slap on the wrist !!  Things NEED to change!!

What I don't understand is why These scammers are only prohibited from making offers of a deceptive nature to consumers. Why aren't they prohibited from engaging in any marketing involving mass texting, emailing, or im.

The suspended judgement is bad enough but the icing on the cake is they, the criminals are banned from operating any more deceptive sites. WHAT's THAT ABOUT??? There should already be a law against what these people did. At this stage they should not be allowed to operate any kind of internet commerce. Where is the justice here? There was absolutely no consequences to their action. If they can't pay the fine, go to their house and take away their TV's, Computers, furniture... then stick them in a jail somewhere for at least a night. Make them do community service... what is this message we have sent to others preparing to do the same thing? Spend the money and you can get away with theft. If I robbed a bank and spent the money would they let me go? Ridiculous.

Here is what the article says about how much they cheated people out of... "The order also contains a monetary judgment of $356,950, which represents the full amount of money the defendants earned from the scam after paying their affiliates."

The bottom line is that nobody wants to regulate the internet. There is this fallacy that the internet is supposed to police itself. Similar to Congress and the Senate on insider trading.

remember  the movie paper moon, these guys are scammers just like Ryan and Tatum did except on the internet. buyer beware. so legit scams today like the bid sites where you pay for each bid which is simply gambling under the auspices of discounted goods. there will always be scammers from Nigerian princes to credit card companies the "give" back 5% (up to $50 a year) yet charge 25% and up interest.

Until these people get serious JAIL TIME nothing is going to change. Fines don't go to the people who were scammed. They go to the government.

Totally agree If they can't pay then they get 1 day in jail for each dollar of the fine they can't pay. PLUS they are not allowed any access to a computer or the internet. Until we deal with these people and recognize these crimes as the serious crimes they are, things will not change.

I've concluded the FTC is an _expensive_ financial fraud accountant. They figure out who and how much is scammed and record the fraud with suspended sentences.  In typical "follow the money" logic, rich, powerful intermediaries like banks and credit card processors skim fee off scams, so there's your incentive not to criminalize the behavior plus if it ever is criminalized only the low-level players end up in jail.  Debtor's prison for the less fortunate.

To me, there is nothing different from this and breaking into a store and stealing $350K+ worth of items and selling them. "Hide" the money so it looks like I only made 40k and obviously, not able to repay it. They stole from the public, received funds with intentional deceit, no different from a break in.  This requires jail time at a minimum as well as barred from owning a business.  

You don't have to regulate the internet, it doesn't do anything?  You need to regulate the businesses the States license.  This would mean we have to regulate roads.  Why...when we already regulate drivers licenses....issued by the state(s).

Don't want to regulate business?  Fine, set harsher fines and jail to persuade business honesty.  You can't say 25 years for fraud is too harsh if you weren't thinking of it in the first place.

Which means absolutely nothing.  They could have each been affiliates for the others, and they were in essence paying themselves off thru the affiliates; hiding the money from the govt.

Amen!
Who says that you can't get blood out of a turnip? In the state of Nevada, prostitution is legal. Sell their A**(es) to the highest bidder, & put the $ in a fund to repay those that they ripped off, then once they're all paid. . . . They still have to sell their a**(es) to repay the cost I their legal supervision, court Dee's & cost. Maybe even restitution.
  * from what I've heard, even though some
wouldn't think of that as a punushment, in my opinion after a while it'd just.....YUCK! & OW!

Oops! I meant:
. . . . court fee's & court. (STUPID Spellcheck! 😄)