"GET YOUR FAST FREE QUOTE": How Response Tree's Consent Farms Ended in a Telemarketing Ban

Here's a case that proves it.

On January 2, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that California lead generator Response Tree LLC and its president, Derek Thomas Doherty, agreed to a proposed order banning them from making, or helping anyone make, robocalls or calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry. The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed the complaint and proposed order on the FTC's referral, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

So what happened?

According to the complaint, the defendants ran more than 50 websites built to get people to hand over their personal information for things like mortgage refinancing. Sites like PatriotRefi.com, AbodeDefense.com and TheRetailRewards.com.

The FTC calls them "consent farms." Here's what that allegedly looked like:

• The sites used deceptive "dark patterns," design tricks that steer people, with disclosures that were hard to find and inadequate.
• On PatriotRefi.com, people typed in their info and clicked a button labeled "GET YOUR FAST FREE QUOTE." The defendants captured that info and stored it to sell.
• Many or all of those people never got a refinance quote.
• The defendants claimed people consented to telemarketing calls just by submitting their info.
• They allegedly sold the leads knowing they didn't have the consent needed for telemarketing calls, including robocalls.

The scale

Per the complaint:

• At their peak, they offered an average of 10,000 "real-time" leads a day. Some days, up to 50,000.
• Between 2019 and 2022, they sold millions of leads.
• Buyers used the leads to make millions of illegal telemarketing calls, including robocalls, selling solar panels, hearing aids, extended auto warranties and more.

50,000 leads in a day. Read that again.

These are the government's allegations. The settlement resolves the case.

Here's the thing ... the lead seller didn't make the calls

Per the FTC, Response Tree sold leads. Telemarketers made the calls. And the lead generator still got banned.

The proposed order:

• Bans them from initiating, or helping anyone initiate, telemarketing robocalls.
• Bans them from calling, or helping anyone call, numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.
• Bans them from selling, transferring or disclosing consumer information in connection with lead generation.
• Imposes a $7 million judgment, suspended based on inability to pay. If they're found to have misrepresented their finances, the whole thing comes due.

That third one basically means "you're out of the lead gen business."

Why should you care?

Because this is the same theory we saw in the Citizens Disability case. Consent farms. Tiny disclosures. Leads sold to people who never really agreed to be called.

If you buy leads, you're relying on somebody else's consent. If that consent is garbage, so is your defense. Am I right?

And if you sell leads, the FTC is saying out loud that it will "target every corner of the illegal telemarketing ecosystem." That sure sounds like you.

What to do this week

It's not rocket science. It's just the boring stuff.

• Visit the actual site every lead comes from. Fill out the form yourself.
• Read the disclosure. Is it clear? Does it name you? Could a normal human find it?
• Ask what the person thought they were signing up for. If it was a "free quote" they never got, that's a red flag.
• Watch the volume. If a vendor can suddenly sell you 50,000 leads a day, ask how.
• Get it in writing. Consent records, timestamps, the exact page shown. If they can't give you that, walk away.

Look, cheap leads are expensive. Every single time. Buy clean, OK?