United States - FTC Action Halts Operation That Billed More Than $25 Million to Consumers' Bank and Credit Card Accounts Without Their Consent

At the FTC’s request, a federal court has temporarily halted an operation that allegedly used an intricate web of concealment to debit hundreds of thousands of consumers’ bank accounts and bill their credit cards more than $25 million without their consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, the Ideal Financial Solutions defendants targeted financially vulnerable consumers who had never come in contact with them, and without authorization debited their bank accounts and charged their credit cards, usually for about $30. How the defendants got the consumers’ financial information is not known, but some consumers had recently applied for payday loans via the Internet, and entities that receive payday loan applications often sell the information to other parties.