Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Bureau of Consumer Protection: Deceptive/Misleading Conduct on Online Stock Trading Site
- The FTC is requiring RagingBull.com, an online stock trading site, to pay $2.425 million and to implement tactics that end the alleged deceptive acts, require affirmative approval from consumers signing up for a subscription, and provide consumers with a simple method of cancelation. According to FTC allegations, the online stock trading site used bogus earnings claims to trick consumers into signing up for services and then trapped them in hard to cancel subscription plans. More specifically, RagingBull.com allegedly made claims that consumers who followed the advice and trade recommendations of its “gurus” could “double or triple” their trading accounts quickly and easily. The FTC complaint further alleges that the defendant included testimonials from purported customers claiming to have made significant amounts of money in short periods of time, e.g., “$6500.00 in 20 minutes.” The complaint noted that Raging Bull’s services, which costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, were set up as recurring subscriptions that are charged quarterly or annually, and that subscribers faced significant hurdles in preventing those recurring charges. The FTC took issue with the allegedly different cancellation requirements that each service had. The proposed order comes on the coat-tail of the FTC’s efforts to crackdown on false earnings claims, returning millions to consumers and requiring click-to-cancel online subscriptions.