PHOENIX (Legal Newsline) — A telemarketing enterprise will pay $6 million in restitution and civil penalties for allegations of bilking consumers across the nation out of millions of dollars, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has announced.
The defendants in the case are Chalonne Foerster, Blain Scribner and Vanessa Fitzgerald. A judge found they violated the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act and the Arizona Telephone Solicitation Statute. Additionally, the three defendants, along with Kyle Evans and Patrick Passarelli were found to allegedly be part of a racketeering enterprise.
The defendants allegedly ran their fraudulent scheme through numerous names, among them Economic Freedom Corporation, Franklin Financial Marketing, BES Enterprises, CGF Enterprises, F Marketing, Fast Website Marketing, Pro Marketing, and Scribner Marketing.
The scheme purportedly involved selling websites to consumers, alleging the consumers could earn commission by selling credit card processing equipment and services from their websites. Other perpetrators of the scheme would then contact the consumer and coerce them into spending thousands of dollars on “advertising packages.”
Brnovich’s office received more than 350 complaints from consumers. Many were elderly consumers who lived on fixed income, meaning they could not afford to lose the monies that they paid to defendants.
Assistant attorney general Nancy V. Anger handled the case.