The Federal government just busted a Diet Pill/Email Scam. Wanna guess where it was based? It’s the classic email spam disguised as a friendly message from someone you know. Three Florida-based affiliate marketers charged with using illegal spam e-mail, false weight-loss claims, and phony celebrity endorsements to market bogus weight-loss products will pay $500,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges. The court order resolving the FTC’s allegations also prohibits the defendants from the illegal advertising and marketing tactics alleged in the complaint.
According to the FTC’s June 2016 complaint, Colby Fox; his companies, Tachht, Inc. and Teqqi, LLC; and a fourth defendant, paid affiliate marketers to send consumers millions of illegal spam emails from hacked email accounts, making it appear that the messages came from the consumers’ family members, friends, or other contacts. The email messages appeared to be a quick note from a family member or friend, passing along a link to an interesting news story.
The links in those email messages led to websites deceptively promoting the defendants’ unproven weight-loss products, such as Original Pure Forskolin and Original White Kidney Bean. These websites deceptively claimed that the defendants’ products could cause weight loss of 17 pounds in 4 weeks, or “41.7lbs in 2.5 months.”
You can read the full FTC report HERE
