On September 9, two court orders were entered against individuals involved in the student loan debt relief industry (orders available here and here). The individuals were barred from the debt relief industry and ordered to pay civil money penalties as well as turn over assets to resolve charges against them. The court orders against the two individuals followed a complaint initially filed by the FTC in November 2024. In entering orders against the two individuals, the court found both defendants participated in deceptive acts or practices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, Section 521 of GLBA and the FTC’s Trade Regulation Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses, with some distinctions. The defendants neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the complaint.

Under the court’s orders, the two defendants were permanently restrained from advertising, marketing, promoting, offering for sale, or selling any secured or unsecured debt relief product or service, and from assisting others in these activities. One of the individual defendants was also banned from telemarketing in any capacity. The court entered a monetary judgment of $45,959,012.69 against the defendants, jointly and severally with any other defendant, and ordered individual payments of $1,550,000 and $108,913 to the FTC, respectively.