WASHINGTON—A Canadian company, RevenueWire, and its CEO, Roberta Leach, will pay $6.75 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges they laundered credit card payments for, and assisted and facilitated, two tech support scams previously sued by the FTC.
“Finding ways to get paid – without getting caught – is essential for scammers who steal money from consumers,” said Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “And that’s exactly what RevenueWire did for tech support scammers when it laundered their transactions through the credit card system.”
According to the FTC, RevenueWire entered into contracts with payment processors to obtain merchant accounts to process credit card charges for its own sales of eBooks and software. The contracts prohibited RevenueWire from submitting third-party sales through its merchant accounts. In reality, however, RevenueWire used its accounts to process credit card charges and collect payments from consumers on behalf of ICE and Vast, two companies that allegedly used tech support scams to bilk consumers out of millions of dollars.
Deceptive Use
According to the FTC’s previous lawsuits against ICE and Vast, the companies’ telemarketers deceptively used a common feature on computers called Event Viewer to misrepresent that consumers’ devices had viruses or performance problems and needed to be repaired at a cost of hundreds of dollars. RevenueWire also processed charges for lead generators—such as operators of deceptive websites—that directed consumers to call ICE and Vast.
RevenueWire and Leach knew of ICE’s unlawful activity. Moreover, RevenueWire’s own fraud analyst called Vast’s owners and managers “a bunch of crooks,” the FTC said.
The complaint alleges that the defendants violated both the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR).
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the defendants will be required to pay $6.75 million. In addition, the defendants are permanently banned from any further payment laundering or violations of the TSR. They also will be required to thoroughly screen and monitor high-risk clients to ensure those clients are not misleading consumers.