NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a settlement with Profinity LLC and Family Savings LLC for $250,000.
The Florida-based Profinity allegedly deceived customers by tricking them into joining a variety of membership programs without their knowledge. Certain New York consumers will receive full refunds. Profinity must also pay for penalties, costs and fees, while further making steps to reform its online marketing practices.
“Consumers, some of whom were simply seeking jobs or rental apartments online, were tricked into paying for services with monthly fees that they did not want or need,” Schneiderman said. “My office will aggressively investigate companies that scam New Yorkers out of their hard-earned money through misleading Internet and phone offers.”
Profinity, according to the claims, would use misleading telemarketing calls that promised free gifts and risk free trials to trick consumers into signing up for fee-based membership programs.
Other consumers, who had bought from third-party customers, would then be put on the phone with Profinity representatives. These representatives would convince the customers that they were representatives for the original company, and they would trick consumers into giving personal information. Profinity would use this information to sign the consumers up for fee-based programs.