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FTC Putting an End to One Bad Firm's Mortgage Spam
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WASHINGTON - The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) along with California's Attorney
General have requested that the U.S. District Court order an injunction to stop
an operation that was allegedly sending spam messages by the millions to U.S.
consumers. The spam email messages made claims of low interest rate mortgages
along with peddling other various products and services. Authorities cited that
the operation has violated federal and state laws. Being as such, the officials
asked the court to freeze assets of the defendants' until trial, and furthermore
to order a permanent halt to the spamming.
Allegedly, in attempt to remain somewhat transparent, defendants used
third-parties, or "affiliates", to transmit the spam emails. In such they
offered many mortgage loans and other products and services. These third party
spammers are also referred to as "button pushers." To elaborate: Web links
contained within the spam email route consumers to Web sites when clicked. The
websites the visitors were taken-to are operated by the defendants. After
reaching the link URL (uniform resource locator) consumers sometimes filled in
personal data. That information was then passed along to mortgage lead
aggregating companies, who in turn farmed the names out to various lenders.
According to reports, mortgage brokers buying the leads at the end of the line
(so to speak) were given assurances that full compliance was being met with
respect to provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act. Bad news for the spamming company is
that some 1.8 million e-mails which have been forwarded and examined by the FTC
show the defendants were violating nearly every provision of the Act. The
defendants are charged with:
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using false or misleading header information
in the appropriate lines of email transmissions;
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using deceptive subject headings in order to
get viewer attention;
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failing to notify consumers that they have
rights to "opt out" of receiving further e-mail advertisements;
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failed to provide an opt-out mechanism or
link in the emails;
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failed to honor any opt-out requests made by
consumers over the campaign course;
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failed to identify each e-mail as being an
advertisement;
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did not provide a valid physical address in
each email.
Named as defendants in the case are:
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Optin Global, Inc., also doing business as
Vision Media Limited Corp.
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USA Lenders Network
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USA Lenders
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USA Debt Consolidation Service
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Vision Media Limited Corp.
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Rick Yang, also known as Qing Kuang Yang
-
Peonie Pui
-
Ting Chen.
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