The company also had been overcharging consumers on fees for training and background checks.
The recession brought many painful realities into existence, and this was one of them – scavenging on the last savings of the jobless.
The FTC has banned the owners of the National Sales Group from marketing any employment products or services in addition to a $13 million in costs and damages.
FTC’s Bob Schroeder said, “The scammers are preying on the desperation of these people to make their lives better. They’re signing up with people who do not have the ability to sign you up for any job at all. They’re simply taking their money.”
The FTC crackdown happened following a rise in the numbers of complaints about the NSG, with some complainants saying they had paid as much as $250 to get a job they thought was there.
FTC has acted hard on this case and Schroeder said “We’ll try and take their last dollar as well,” referring to the company owners who ran the scam on the jobless. “We took their Mercedes, their residence in Huntington Beach, California. We don’t want these guys walking away with any of the money they stole from consumers.”
However, the FTC warns that the threat is not gone, and other companies may be out there online trying to fool and defraud desperate jobseekers.
The best advice, the FTC said, was to suspect any company that requires any kind of startup money or processing costs to give a job.