Phone scammers hit with $34.5M fine
In WASHINGTON - Two individuals involved in a massive scam that padded consumers’ phone bills with calls they didn’t make have agreed to pay up to $34.5 million in fines to settle federal fraud charges. Most of the fines assessed against Yaret Garcia and Erika Riaboukha were suspended based on their inability to pay, the Federal Trade Commission. A third defendant, Qaadir Kaid, was fined $75,000. The FTC said that it expects to recover $12,000 from Riaboukha and about $75,000 from Kaid and Garcia. The defendants led three companies, collectively known as Nationwide, that billed more than $34 million worth of unauthorized collect calls to millions of consumers over a two and a half year period, the agency said.
The FTC first charged the three, along with their companies and two additional individuals, with padding phone bills, a practice known as cramming-in February 2006. A federal judge has since appointed a receiver to dismantle Nationwide. The FTC also last month fined BSG Clearing Solutions North America LLC, a billing aggregator, $1.9 million for its role in the fraud. The three defendants are also barred from unauthorized telephone billing and from selling or renting any personal information they obtained from Nationwide, the agency said. The settlements do not imply an admission of guilt by the defendants.
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