FTC Targets Cash Flow Infomercial

The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit in a Colorado U.S. District Court to block broadcast and cable TV infomercials for ‘Winning in the Cash Flow Business' and try to recoup the money paid by consumers the FTC says was deceived by the ads into thinking they could make a killing trading in seller-financed promissory notes.

The ads, featuring actor Gary Collins, have aired "tens of thousands of times on broadcast and cable television," said the FTC, and is one of the top 100 most distributed TV infomercials. The FTC says that Dalbey Education Institute CEO Russell Dalbey defrauded customers with deceptive claims that they could make big bucks quickly and with little work and misled them about how much they could actually make and how long it would take.

"'Winning in the Cash Flow Business' was a real loser for hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide," said David Vladeck, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in announcing the complaint. "When someone is selling a program designed to help people make money, they have to accurately describe how much consumers can expect to make and be truthful about how quickly they will be able to do so. None of that happened in this case, and people who bought the program paid the price."