A federal judge in Illinois has ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission in a case the FTC has been litigating since 2019 against a telemarketing company and its owners, finding they made millions of illegal, unsolicited calls to consumers on the Do Not Call Registry.
The court found that corporate defendants Day Pacer, LLC and Edutrek, L.L.C. purchased consumers’ contact information primarily from websites claiming to help people find jobs, and instead illegally called those consumers to market unsolicited vocational or post-secondary education services. The court also found that the defendants assisted and facilitated other telemarketing companies by paying them to make approximately 40 million calls to consumers on the Do Not Call Registry. Additionally, the court found that individual defendants Raymond Fitzgerald, Ian Fitzgerald, and David Cumming directly participated in or had authority to control the corporations’ deceptive acts or practices, and were therefore also liable.
The court found that the defendants knowingly violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule, citing evidence that the defendants had ignored repeated complaints from consumers and warnings from business partners.
In granting summary judgment, the court found that the FTC was entitled to both injunctive relief and civil penalties. The court has scheduled a hearing to determine the amount of the civil penalty award and the scope of injunctive relief.