A U.S. court has temporarily shut down an operation that used "spam" e-mail to drum up customers for a fraudulent work-at-home scheme, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.
Gregory Bryant and Nadira Bryant of Florida promised recipients of their unsolicited e-mail that they would earn $4 for each envelope they stuffed and mailed as long as they paid $24.77 for a start-up kit, the FTC said.
Those who paid for the kit instead got a CD-ROM explaining how to get others to pay money for an envelope-stuffing kit, the FTC said in a complaint. They were charged another $24.95 after a 30-day trial period.
The two defendants, who operated under a variety of business aliases, did not honor refund requests, the consumer-protection agency said.
The two violated an anti-spam law because they faked return e-mail addresses and used deceptive subject lines like "Info You Have Requested" to trick recipients into opening them, the FTC said.
The scam also violates deceptive-business and telemarketing laws, the FTC said.
The operation has been temporarily shut down by a U.S. court in Florida, and the FTC said it would press to shut it down permanently and return profits to consumers.
The defendants could not be reached for comment.