The USA’s Federal Trade Commission asked a federal judge to shut down an operation that allegedly sent millions of illegal spam text messages, including many messages that deceptively advertised a mortgage modification website called “Loanmod-gov.net.” The FTC is also asking the court to freeze the defendant’s assets.
According to the FTC complaint, the defendant, Phillip A. Flora, sent millions of text messages, pitching loan modification assistance, debt relief and other services.
According to additional Court documents filed by the agency, in one 40-day period, Flora sent more than 5.5 million text messages – at a rate of about 85 per minute – every minute of every day.
The FTC claims that consumers lose money as a result of Flora’s Spam text messaging because many of them have to pay to receive text messages.
The text messages told consumers to respond to the messages or visit one of the operation’s websites. One of the sites, loanmod-gov.net, used a web address that appeared to be a government web address, claimed to provide “Official Home Loan Modification and Audit Assistance Information,” and displayed a photo of an American flag.
According to the FTC’s complaint, Flora collects information from consumers who respond to the text messages, even those asking him to stop sending messages. They, then, sell their contact information to marketers claiming they are debt settlement leads.
The FTC charges that Flora violated the FTC Act by sending unsolicited commercial text messages to consumers and by misrepresenting that he was affiliated with a government agency.
In addition, the FTC charges that they advertised their text message blasting services by sending consumers e-mail spam that violated the CAN-SPAM Act – a law that sets the rules for commercial email. The FTC alleges that his e-mail spam failed to include a way for consumers to “opt-out” of future messages and failed to include the physical mailing address of the sender, as required by the law.
The FTC acknowledged the assistance it received from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and the CTIA infilling its case against the defendant.
