The Federal Trade Commission recently settled its lawsuit against investment advice company WealthPress and its owners, Roger Scott and Conor Lynch for using deceptive and misleading claims to induce consumers to purchase their bogus investment advising services. WealthPress represented that their recommendations were based on a proprietary system that guaranteed success when, in fact, most of their customers lost money after paying as much as thousands of dollars to sign up for WealthPress’ recommendations.
WealthPress used deceptive and misleading videos to lure people into buying their system. In one video, WealthPress said, “I’ll show you how you can potentially make $28,840 dollars – or more-every single week. With quick simple… trades that require zero market knowledge or trading experience.”
Under the terms of the settlement, WealthPress, Scott and Lynch are paying 1.2 million dollars to the FTC to be used to pay refunds to the victims of their scam. WealthPress, Scott and Lynch will also be paying a $500,000 civil penalty. I will keep you informed as terms of the repayment become known.
TIPS
The sale of business opportunities is regulated by the FTC’s Business Opportunity Rule which requires the sellers of business opportunities to provide a one-page disclosure document outlining important facts about the offering including informing you about any legal actions in which the sellers have been involved. The disclosure also has to provide you with details as to any refund policy and provide a list of references. Additionally, as is always the case with these types of scams, if they make claims about how much money you can earn through their scheme, they must provide you with an Earnings Claim Statement that indicates in detail the specifics of those claims and the opportunity to see written proof of the claims.
Before considering any kind of business opportunity, you should have a lawyer review these required disclosures and if the person offering you the business opportunity does not provide these documents, you should consider that a red flag that this is a scam. You also should investigate the people behind the offering as well as the particular type of business opportunity.
Finally, as always if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. WealthPress’ promises of high returns at no risk are obviously too good to be true.
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