Phone Calls, Fake Security Alerts and a Tech Support Ban: FTC and Alabama v. Troth Solutions

But in the Troth Solutions case, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the State of Alabama said the operators reached people two ways. Online ads that looked like security alerts. And plain old phone calls.

So what happened?

In May 2017, as part of a big crackdown called "Operation Tech Trap," the FTC and Alabama jointly sued Trothsolutions Inc., Trothsolutions LLC, Quickkonto LLC, Crazy Bee Man of Palm Beach Inc., eDoorways International Corp., Escue Energy, Inc., Airoways LLC and two individuals, Madhu Sethi and Ila Sethi. The case was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Alabama (case no. 2:17-cv-00698-RDP). The court entered a temporary restraining order on May 1, 2017, and a preliminary injunction on May 10.

According to the complaint:

• The defendants used phone calls and online ads made to look like security alerts from major tech companies.
• They got people to give them access to their computers.
• Then they "found" problems. Viruses, hacks, other issues.
• And they pushed hard. High-pressure tactics got people to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary repairs, service plans, antivirus software and more.

Read the FTC and Alabama complaint against Troth Solutions.

The bigger crackdown

Operation Tech Trap was the FTC working with federal, state and international partners. In May 2017, they announced 16 new actions, which brought the total to 29 actions against tech support scams in a year.

"Tech support scams prey on consumers' legitimate concerns about malware, viruses and other cyber threats," said Tom Pahl, then Acting Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

How did it end?

In October 2017, the FTC announced the results:

• The Sethis settled. They're permanently banned from advertising, marketing, promoting or selling any tech support product or service.
• They're also barred from collecting payment for tech support sold by the defendants, from deceptive telemarketing and from misrepresenting an affiliation with another company.
• A $2 million judgment was imposed, most of it suspended.
• Default judgment: The court entered a $2,087,844.72 default judgment against six of the seven companies. The seventh, Escue Energy, was dismissed at the FTC's and Alabama's request.

In February 2019, the FTC sent out checks, averaging $380, totaling more than $26,000, to 70 consumers.

Why should you care?

Look, the call is the product in these scams. Whether it starts with an outbound call or a scary pop-up, the money gets made on the phone.

So if you operate a call center, or buy or sell calls in the tech support space:

• Never claim to be Microsoft, Apple or anyone else unless you actually are.
• Don't diagnose a problem you haven't found. "Diagnostic tests" that always find something are exactly what the FTC described in this crackdown.
• Ditch the pressure. Hundreds of dollars on a scared person's credit card is not a business model.
• Know where your calls come from. If the traffic comes from fake security alerts, you're in the blast zone.

Remember that a state attorney general can be right alongside the FTC on the complaint.