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Home products company Williams-Sonoma will be required to pay a record civil penalty of $3.175 million for violating a 2020 �鶹��ý Trade Commission order requiring the retailer to tell the truth about whether the products it sells are Made in USA.

In a complaint filed by the Department of Justice upon notification and referral from the FTC, the agency charges that Williams-Sonoma listed multiple products for sale as being “Made in USA” when in fact they were made in China and other countries. The company has agreed to a settlement that requires them to pay the civil penalty, which is the largest ever in a Made in USA case.

The �鶹��ý Trade Commission is taking action against bill payment company Doxo and two of its co-founders, charging that the company uses misleading search ads to impersonate consumers’ billers and deceptive design practices to mislead consumers about millions of dollars in junk fees they tacked on to consumers’ bills.

The complaint alleges that Doxo, its CEO and co-founder Steve Shivers, and its vice president and co-founder Roger Parks, have known from years of internal surveys and complaints from tens of thousands of consumers and hundreds of billers of the harms their business model caused consumers and have still failed to correct their unlawful actions.

The FTC  charged Ring with compromising its customers’ privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers’ private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos.

The �鶹��ý Trade Commission has stopped scammers who the agency says facilitated an operation to prey on students seeking debt relief. The agency charges that the defendants pretended to be affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education, used deceptive loan forgiveness promises, and falsely claimed they were offering relief under the “Biden Loan Forgiveness” plan to lure students and collect millions in illegal upfront fees. 

After the FTC filed a complaint seeking to end the deceptive practices, a federal court temporarily halted the operations and froze the assets of Apex Processing Center and its owners.

In February 2024, under proposed orders settling the FTC’s charges, several defendants in the case—including Express Enrollment LLC, Intercontinental Solutions LLC, Ivan Esquivel, and Robert Kissinger were permanently banned from the debt relief industry and were ordered to turn over their assets to the FTC. In April 2024, the ringleader of the scheme, Marco Manzi, was also banned from the industry and was ordered to turn over assets as part of a settlement with the FTC.

In August 2021, the FTC and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office sued the co-founders of the Stem Cell Institute of America for marketing stem cell therapy to seniors nationwide using bogus claims that it is effective in treating arthritis, joint pain, and a range of other orthopedic ailments.

X-Mode Social and its successor Outlogic will be prohibited from sharing or selling any sensitive location data to settle FTC allegations that the company sold precise location data that could be used to track people’s visits to sensitive locations such as medical and reproductive health clinics, places of religious worship and domestic abuse shelters.

AT&T reached a settlement with the FTC over allegations that the wireless provider misled millions of its smartphone customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds.