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Bad Canadians - Global Marketing Group

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From the FTC Press Release on bad Canadians engaged in telemarketing fraud.

"A U.S. district court has granted a summary judgment against Ira N. Rubin and default judgments against 22 corporations that Rubin owned or controlled.

The final court orders permanently bar Rubin and the corporate defendants from engaging in telemarketing and payment processing activities and impose an $8.6 million judgment against them. Rubin ran Global Marketing Group, an international payment-processing operation that illegally debited millions of dollars from U.S. consumers' bank accounts on behalf of numerous telemarketing scams.

Rubin's partner and co-defendant, Kevin Astl, also has reached a settlement with the Commission.

The court order settling the charges against Astl prohibits him from engaging in payment processing, bars him from violating the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), prevents him from disclosing customer information, and imposes a suspended judgment of $5,145,127 against him.

According to the FTC's amended complaint against the Global Marketing Group defendants, since at least January 2003, the defendants provided substantial support and assistance to at least nine Canadian telemarketing firms that sell non-existent credit cards to U.S. consumers.

In return for an advance fee of several hundred dollars, which the defendants debited from consumers' bank accounts on behalf of the telemarketers, consumers expected to receive an unsecured credit card but instead received either nothing or a worthless "benefits package."

Wouldn't it just be easier to buy a telephone answering device and screen your calls to avoid the advance fee pitch?

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Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on March 02, 2009 (boomark / email).