July 23, 2021

Septic Tank Cleaning Products Company Settles Over Millions Of Alleged Illegal Robocalls

Bernard Nash

Cozen O'Connor

+ Follow Contact

Facebook

Send

Embed

Cozen O'Connor

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) reached a settlement with septic tank cleaning products company Environmental Safety International, Inc. and related individuals (collectively “ESI”) to resolve allegations that it made tens of millions of illegal robocalls in violation of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
The complaint alleged that, among other things, ESI and its telemarketer made misleading calls, including to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, misidentifying ESI as an environmental company. The calls offered free information, but when consumers indicated interest in the free information they received a sales pitch instead. The complaint also alleged that ESI falsely threatened customers with unpaid balances on their accounts with referrals to a collection agency or an attorney.
Under the terms of the stipulated order, ESI is subject to a $10.2 million civil penalty judgment, of which it will pay approximately $1.65 million and the rest will be suspended due to inability to pay. ESI will also be permanently banned from telemarketing and is required to notify all ESI customers with unpaid balances that their balances have been canceled and do not need to be paid, among other things.

Send Print Report

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.