In the Scam of the day for February 2, 2021 I told you about that the Federal Trade Commission had settled claims against Seed Consulting LLC after the FTC had filed a complaint against the company for charging consumers between $3,000 and $4,000 merely to apply on their behalf for multiple credit cards with total credit lines of more than $50,000, a practice referred to as “credit card stacking.”  The credit cards were then used to pay for expensive and generally useless training programs that purported to train aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to start businesses or to become successful real estate investors.

Pursuant to the terms of the settlement, Seed Consulting LLC paid 2.1 million dollars to the FTC which in September of 2021 sent refunds to the victims of the scam.  Now because there is still undistributed funds, the FTC is sending second checks to victims of the scam who already had received checks in 2021.  For more information about the refund program go the tab marked “FTC Scam Refunds”  in the middle of the first page of http://www.scamicide.com.

According to Andrew Smith of the FTC, “Seed obtained credit cards for consumers by using inflated income, and then shared the credit limits with promoters of bogus real estate seminars who tricked consumers into maxing out the cards to pay for the seminar ‘tuition.'”  Many of these training companies had already been charged by the FTC with operating deceptive training schemes.  Most consumers who paid for these training programs earned little if anything from the programs and ended up with substantial credit card debt and lower credit scores.

TIPS

You should always be wary of any company that charges a significant fee merely to assist you in obtaining credit cards.  You don’t need the help of third parties to whom you must pay a fee to apply for credit cards on your behalf.  In particular, any company that encourages you to falsely inflate your income on credit card applications should be avoided.

ftc As for training programs to teach you how to start a business or invest in real estate, there are plenty of free or low cost materials you can get that can be quite helpful.  Always research any such business coaching program before purchasing it.  A simple way to research such companies is to do to Google or other search engine search with the name of the company and the word “scam” and see what comes up.

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