Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FTC Busts Domain Name Scammers

Posted by Soulskill on from the wrists-have-been-slapped dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission said today it had permanently killed the operations of a group that it said posed as domain name registrars and convinced thousands of US consumers, small businesses and non-profit organizations to pay bogus bills by leading them to believe they would lose their Web site addresses if they didn't. As with so many of these cases however, the defendants get off paying back very little compared to what they took. With today's settlement order, entered against defendants Isaac Benlolo, Kirk Mulveney, Pearl Keslassy, and 1646153 Ontario Inc., includes a suspended judgment of $4,261,876, the total amount of consumer injury caused by the illegal activities. Based on what the FTC called the inability of the settling defendants to pay, they will turn over $10,000 to satisfy the judgment."

5 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. What happened to debtor's prison? by ZipK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they can't pay the full judgment, why not have them work off the bill in debtor's prison?

  2. Another pointless FTC slap on the wrist by sirwired · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, I don't know why the FTC even bothers. If these clowns aren't criminally prosecuted, what exactly is the point? $10k, and an order to Go Forth and Sin No More is just a waste of time.

    And the "Go Forth" orders are routinely ignored... I think Kevin Trudeau has been slapped by the FTC for infomercial scams no less than three times, and he still doesn't give a $hit.

    SirWired

    1. Re:Another pointless FTC slap on the wrist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Riddle me this: Why is it that these guys get their judgement whittled to $10,000 for doing an active crime with victims, while some guy who left a directory full of songs on LimeWire gets stuck with a multi-million dollar amount that the only way it can be discharged is an immediate bankruptcy... and most likely a judge would turn that down?

      Yes, IP violations are crimes, but scamming people out of money is a far greater crime than downloading the latest remix of "Oops I Did It Again."

      I wish the FTC would have gone whole hog on these people, wage garnishment, tax return attached, property seized, etc. so the fine is paid.

    2. Re:Another pointless FTC slap on the wrist by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The obvious lesson here is that if you *MUST* either download a song, or scam thousands of businesses out of hundreds of dollars each, the federal government wants you to NOT download the song. Why else would the punishment/fines be higher?

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  3. Wrong business by uffe_nordholm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's see if I get this right: the guys make a little over 4M dollars, get fined 10K dollars and can "keep" the rest because they have already spent it? If this is true, I'm in the wrong business!