FTC Charges Online Marketers with Scamming Consumers out of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars with ‘Free’ Trial Offers

In a huge case the FTC has begun to take action in these Free Trial offers, more commonly refereed, to as forced continuity. You may remember back a few months ago when some Internet Marketers were selling books on how to do forced continuity, imagine if you had done this and now you find yourself fighting just to stay out of jail?

In fact there are several companies that might even now be in violation of the new FTC guides which are due to go into effect in the very near future.

 The Federal Trade Commission has brought a law enforcement action against an online operation that allegedly raked in more than $450 million from consumers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand by luring them into “free” or “risk-free” offers, and then charging them for products and services they did not want or agree to purchase. As part of its ongoing efforts to stamp out online fraud, the FTC seeks to stop the operation’s illegal practices and make the defendants repay injured consumers.

You should carefully examine your forced continuity plans and even those that you may be promoting.

There are some fairly easy steps that you can take to defend yourself from being charged with this type of offense.

Most people do not even know what the FTC guides are or how the revised guides change the entire game.

In many cases this is a good thing, in some few smaller cases it could be a bad thing.